Let Us Fix It
by Utopist
Summary: Literati. “I take it you're ok with... this?” He whispers in between kisses. She smiles. Ok? Better than ok.
1. Language is Failing Me!

DISCLAIMER: Don't own 'em, so sue me if I'm using 'em. Spencerville belongs to Nelson Demille, and Planet Bob is from Titan After Earth.

Chapter 1: "Language is Failing Me!"

She walks up to the diner, hesitates, leaves.

His turn. He goes to the door, pauses before opening it, and goes back to cleaning the counter.

She comes back, gets as far as the door, balls her hand to a fist and poises to knock... only to let it drop limply at her side and step away.

He notices, throws the rag in the general direction of the counter, throws the door open and runs after her.

"Rory!"

_Oh geez! Mariano, do yourself a favor, get a grip! Don't sound so freaking desperate!_

"Rory!"

She keeps on walking away from him, and he considers giving up, before picking up his step and catching up to her.

_Wow, deja vue_, he thinks, as he remembers stopping one of her flights months before, she completely drenched and panicked, he wanting to help her, needing to be of some use to her, convinced as he was that he would never have her.

She eyes him.

"Rory..."

"That does seem to be my name, doesn't it?"

_Wow, sarcasm. We're getting some response here. Better than the silent treatment we've been giving each other for the past couple of days; which, by the way, felt like a couple freaking years. Better yet, make that a couple of centuries._

"Do you... I'm..."

She keeps looking at him, her gaze is angry and fearful, and hopeful, and expectant. He throws up his hands in frustration.

"Language is failing me!"

She rolls her eyes when he admits to this, but notices him eyeing the surroundings and silently agrees with what she knows he must be thinking. Not here, on a sidewalk, in the middle of the nosiest town on the face of the Earth.

"Come on" she says, taking hold of his shirt sleeve.

It's deja vue all over again, when they had never even considered dating, but were friends, friendly, friendish, and he secretly wanted the girl and she was slowly coming out of her shell. She leads him to the bridge, and he understands she is not ready to be completely alone with him yet._ Idiot! Mariano, you're a fucking idiot, a total asshole, an inconsiderate jerk..._

"Jess" _blue eyed, brown haired beauty stopping self-berating speech right now_.

"Talk to me" she meets his gaze, searching him, and he lets her, no barriers and guard down. He can't protect himself now, not after everything that happened. That he let happen. _That you screwed up, Mariano!_ And it's self insulting all over again.

He sighs.

"Rory..."

Where to start?

"Give me a minute" he pleads, and she nods as he gathers his thoughts... and ends up blurting out "I'm an idiot!"

"Huh" she replies, and frowns at him.

_Wow. Scary._

"You need to do better than that, Jess, or I'm leaving" She moves to do just that, and is getting up, taking a few steps to get off the bridge.

"Please don't" he pleads with her. "If you go I'll never be able to... do... this" he gestures wildly with his hand.

"Alright" she replaces herself next to him, not touching but almost.

"Ok" he breathes "Let's try this. Ask me what you want, and I'll answer."

"The party" she says, emotionless as they come, and it wrenches his heart.

"Me being an idiot?"_ Oh, you don't say?_

"We covered that"

True, that they have.

"I was upset. I shouldn't have come at all, but you wanted to be there for Lane, and wanted me with you, and I wanted to be with you, so I came. I had... a lot on my mind... and I took it out on you." He pauses. "Shit just keeps onpiling up".

This does not go unnoticed by Rory, who files it away for later reference and steels herself for the question she wants to ask next.

"Did you... you know... want..." She blushes, and he wants to smirk, but knows he can't.

Jess stares off into the water, trying to phrase what he's feeling.

"I'm an 18 year old guy, of course I wanted to... with someone as beautiful as you..." He meets her gaze "But you were right. Not there, not then, not if you weren't ready."

She keeps silent, and he continues.

"I wanted to talk to you first." He sees her nod "aside from that 'keep thinking what you're thinking' bone you threw me."

He sees her smirk, and knows they are getting somewhere. Again, he thinks _'scary'._ Wondering whether he should reprimand her on plagiarizing his trademark facial expression.

"What did you have on your mind?"

Wham! He has been hit with the mother of all questions.

"Again. Me, being an idiot."

"And again, I say, we have covered that..." She has a hint of amusement in her voice, and were this conversation any different he'd tell her something along the lines of a 'Ms. Gilmore, are you implying you enjoy your boyfriend being called an idiot?' But this conversation is anything but.

"Remember when I showed up at Lane's?"

"Mrs. Kim ran you off with a cricket bat."

He winces at the memory that so clearly amuses her.

"I told you I was going to school. That I was going enough..."

"Oh... Oh... Oh..." She utters, as understanding and all of its ramifications come tumbling upon her.

"Jess!" she almost yells. She feels like launching in a tirade.

But doesn't. Now is not the time to play the angry girlfriend. She will have time for that later. Now, they need to get through this without causing any more damage. Whether that is possible or not is a bet with unknown odds.

He watches as realization writes itself all over her face, and jumps when she calls his name. He really can lay blame with no other than himself. He knows what's going through her mind. No prom, no graduation, disappointment. Boyfriend who's beneath her, who doesn't come up to her standards, who's going to hold her back, who hurt her. _Way to confirm everybody's opinion Mariano. Way to screw everything up as usual._

"Jess" she calls him out of his reverie, speaking his name gently, before he gets so deep in his self accusation he can't help but drown in it.

"That seems to be my name" _Oh, yeah, sarcasm. If she doesn't leave now she'll marry me. Wow. Where did that come from?_

"So... what now?"

"Don't know" he answers truthfully.

"There is something else, isn't there?"

Ouch. Painfully to the fucking point, Rory._ I guess I deserve that. Before 'let's get Jess out of this mess' Rory, there is 'I need every single fucking detail' Rory._ He wants to go back to his walls and his sarcasm, his scowling, eye rolling, glaring, and silence, but he can't. He seems to have lost the ability to do that when it comes to her. _And this is hardly a detail, Mariano, this is huge, mind blowing fucking huge..._

"Remember my life story Ror?" he throws it out like a bait, which she takes and chews on thoughtfully.

"Let's just say that the guy who gave me the Y chromosome decided to make an appearance" he spits bitterly out, and hears a small gasp coming from her.

"He lives in California, mans a hot dog stand, and wanted to see me."

"Oh..."

He proceeds to tell her about the guy who hogged the table by the window, his showing up in the evening at the diner, his anger towards Luke who decided to keep one secret too many.

"And you gave him coffee?" she asks, utterly at a loss for intelligent questioning. She needs to wrap her mind about this, work out in her pretty little and incredibly intelligent head the way to stand by Jess without him pushing her away.

She wants to leave, go home, and think all of this through and through. She wants to make lists, and talk to Lane, or Lorelai, or write in her journal, or whatever... she wants to hold him, kiss him, push him into the lake, scream at him or something... but she only sits there, locking gazes with him. This is probably the most information Jess has given her in such a short amount of time. Coming to think of it, this is definitely the most talkative Jess has been in a while.

"Ror?" he asks carefully "Still on planet Earth?"

"Nope... on planet Bob" she replies, emerging from her elaboration process.

She stands up and turns to go home, Jess watches her go, when, at the end of the bridge, she turns around and looks at him expectantly.

"Well? Aren't you going to walk me home?"

He all but runs to her, and she wraps an arm around his waist, while her hand reaches down, '_contact again'_ ,and pulls the proverbial book out the back pocket. She glances at it.

"Spencerville? DeMille?"

"Hello, were you talking to me a few minutes ago?"

"Oh... yeah... It does speak to anger and angst, doesn't it? Am I Annie Prentis to your Keith Landry?"

_Too easy. Too easy. Too easy..._

"And Dean is Baxter"

She rolls her eyes. They walk home, both of them knowing they still need a solution to this mess.

**A/N: I'll be one of those pathethic fanfic writers who asks for reviews. Please. Just to see whether you guys like it, and have any suggestions. M. For other details, go to my bio. Big, great news stored in there. :)**


	2. Be Thou the Tenth Muse

Disclaimer: Not mine, so sue me if I'm using 'em. Sonnet 38 belongs to good ol' William Shakespeare. Episode transcripts from whatever site you can find them on.

Hey guys, loving the feedback. I was fearing you wouldn't like it. To answer some of your questions, let's just say I have a general idea of where I want it to go, but nothing definite as of yet. It is a literati, and we are going to have our happy ending, but right now I'm mad enough I could put them through a few trials and tribulations.

Oh, and for those of you who are worrying, I will not let Dean have Rory. Rest assured. No Narc. None whatsoever. Perish and banish the thought.

Chapter 2: Be Thou the Tenth Muse

A troubled teenaged couple walks on, a tight cocoon weaved of tangled thoughts transparently shrouding it from the rest of the world; their gazes are guarded and warning, daring anybody to come up to them and destroy this fragile equilibrium. Luckily, noone does.

The silence isn't easy, but it isn't exactly uncomfortable either... it's... pregnant... with expectation and hints of unfinished matters, and miles to go before the journey is actually through. They've been walking in silence for an hour now, circling Stars Hollow in every possible way and using every combination of streets, before finding themselves at the gas pump.

"Huh." They say in stereo, before looking at each other and rolling eyes simultaneously.

Rory takes careful steps and makes gentle moves, turning fully towards him and walking into the embrace she knows is waiting for her. Jess gingerly wraps his arms around her, places gentle kisses on her moonlit skin, trailing his lips on her cheek, her eyelid, her nose, before carefully asking for her lips. She gives them. As they hold each other, they wait for the world to spin back into place. Jess holds on to Rory, Rory stays firmly rooted to sanity and reality, forcing Jess to stay there with her, and for a moment everything falls back in place.

Disentangling, the silent cocoon still wrapped around them, they resume walking towards their original destination, and upon reaching it, seeing noone home, they step inside.

The answering machine shatters their trance, and they are both startled back to an even more immediate reality.

"Hey Sweets, things are, to put it nicely A MESS! I'll be here until we can sort out the last details...order pizza, go to Luke's, see Jess. I love you"

It sounds strained.

Rory knows that tone. Her mother is forcing herself to be at the inn, in order to retrieve whatever documents are still available, tie up loose ends, salvage everything worth saving. Lorelai and Sookie had been talking about opening their own inn, and the three of them had come up with many closure scenarios; saying goodbye to a burned down Independence Inn not being one of them.

Jess eyes Rory warily, at a loss for actions, words and thoughts. She goes to her rooms, almost forgetting that he's there with her, and plops down on her bed.

He follows.

He joins her.

He waits for her to acknowledge him, acknowledgement coming in shape of an arm on his torso, her head on his chest, one leg thrown over him.

"How can my muse want subject to invent

While thou dost breathe, that pou'st into my verse

Thine own sweet argument, too excellent

For every vulgar paper to rehearse?

O, give thyself the thanks if aught in me

Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;

For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,

When thou thyself dost give invention light?

Be thou the tenth muse, ten times more in worth

Than those old nine which rhymers invocate,

And he calls on thee, let him bring forth

Eternal numbers to outlive long date.

If my slight muse do please these curious days,

The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise."

"And quoting Shakespeare is going to help us how?" She inquires, but a slow grin is spreading on her face, making her eyes glow with happyness and... Jess doens't quite recognize the other sentiment deep within her blue gaze.

"I don't know" he replies, causing her grin to transform in chuckling.

"What?"

"You're quoting Sonnet # 38" chuckling turns to giggling, and giggling to side-splitting laugh.

"You... old... softie" She barely manages to choke out. It's contagious, and soon their laughter is making it hard to breathe. Sobering, tears in their eyes, a significant amount of tension has been released, easing the next portion of their conversation forward until they're staring right at it and avoiding it any longer is literally impossible.

"You old softie..." She whispers, as she gives him a lingering kiss.

"Luke kicked me out" he reluctantly admits, breaking it off.

He feels her nod against his chest, biting at his shirt to keep quiet until he finishes his thoughts. He feels wetness seeping through it, and smiles slightly.

"I lashed out at him, he lashed out at me" he winces as the fight plays over and over again in his mind. "We were frustrated." He manages to look at Rory, fabric still safely in her mouth.

"Is that any good?"

"Next best thing to coffee" she mumbles, not letting go of it quite yet. When she does, she replaces it with his index finger, gnawing slightly at it like a teething 1 year old. He lets her, as his other hand hooks through the belt loops on her jeans and toys with them.

The night is spent talking, reading, kissing, rehashing, listening to music. Various arguments are issued throughout the next twelve hours, leaving them physically exhausted and emotionally drained by the time morning rolls around to greet them with the smell of rain and coffe.


	3. Love is Blindness

Disclaimer: Not mine, so sue me if I'm using 'em. Love is Blindness belongs to U2, and if I could I'd own Bono Vox, but nope, no chance of that. Growl! Transcripts and lyrics from any site that has 'em.

A/N: In my Gilmoreverse, Rory has curly hair like in Swan Song, just 'cause I like her better that way. Please excuse the amount of swear words, but I wanted to portray what our two diner guys are feeling, and during that fight emotions run high and tension piles up. Hope you see where I'm coming from.

Chapter 3: Love is Blindness

9 PM

"Easy" topics.

School.

**Flashback**

"You don't take anything seriously. That's why you're doing so crappy in school. You're smart enough, you read more than anyone I've ever seen. There's no reason why you should be barely graduating." Luke's voice is growing angrier by the second. Everything Jess has done wrong since coming to Stars Hollow is finally taking its toll. _This kid is fucking unbelievable._

"I'm not." _Deal with it, Uncle Luke._

"You're not what?" _Oh, no, please don't tell me what I think I'm thinking you're going to tell me. And Lorelai has taken over the building. Keep the coffee stashed at all times..._

"I'm not graduating." _There, happy?_ Surprisingly, he doesn't feel as smug as he sounds.

"Yes, you are." _He must be joking, else he's not going to graduation, the school burned down, or he burned it down..._

No, I'm not." _Dammit Luke, get the hint. This conversation needs to be over, I need to figure out my fucking life!_

"Yes, you are, because we had an agreement that if you were gonna live here, you were gonna go to school and you were gonna graduate." _That was the agreement, wasn't it? Cause I sure don't remember a you can swap school for Wal-Mart any time you please clause in there, my darling nephew._

"Well, I didn't and I'm not."_ Jess Mariano, too cool for school. Yeah, that's me._ This spiteful thought leaves him a bitter taste somewhere at the back of his throat.

" What is wrong with you? What, did you do this just to spite me?"_ So this is what failing someone feels like. Wow._ Realization sinks in._ And that is why I don't have kids, because I knew I couldn't for the life of me take care of someone. Let alone someone like this smarthmouthed fuckup who doesn't get it. While Lorelai, as nuts as she is, has a well adjusted teenaged daughter who's graduating at the top of her class and is going to Yale in the fal. And it always comes down to Lorelai, doesn't it?_

"Look, forget it, it's done." _Take the fucking hint Luke, we're not having this damned conversation any longer._

"What's your life now? Wal-Mart full time, that's your great future? Gonna take the plunge and buy yourself a second blue vest?" _Yeah, the future. This kid doesn't even know how to spell the word. Let alone giving it some thought._

"Maybe, why not? What's wrong with it? I mean, it's no diner." _There. Take this and chew on it, Uncle Luke, cause sure as hell I am through thinking and discussing this. With you. Who run a diner. And pine after Lorelai. At least I beat you on that. I got my Lorelai._ And as soon as that thought is over, there is another, much more painful and less pleasant sinking in._ And I'm going to lose her. Because I failed her. And you._ These two syllables linger.

"Hey, I own this business, kid! I built it, this is mine! I'm not at the mercy of some boss waiting and hoping to be chosen employee of the month for a couple extra hundred bucks and a plaque. I'm always employee of the month. I'm employee of the year, of the century, of the universe. You should be so lucky to have a job like mine. Okay, here's what we're gonna do. You're gonna live here one more year, you're gonna quit you job, you're gonna take twelfth grade over again, and you will graduate." _Take it, Jess, this is the last chance you get. The world ain't big on second chances, kid, and you're getting way too many of them, and keep screwing 'em up. What in hell is so wrong you can't fix? What has you so derailed you can't get back on track?_

"No." _Fuck off! Don't tell me what to do with my life! My. Life. Mine. Only thing I own! Back off! _

"I'm not playing with you here, Jess. You quit your job, you go to school."_ Last chance, kid. For my sake, your sake, take it._

**End Flashback**

A CD Lane put together for her plays in the background. Time for U2 to bring some more angst to this situation. They don't mind, it's the kind of angst that goes along with the current mood.

"Love is blindness,

I don't want to see

won't you wrap the night

around me"

"Don't you want to graduate?" she asks.

_This is preposterous. Why wouldn't anybody want to graduate? _Then she stops dead in her tracks._ This is Jess Mariano we're talking about. We aren't talking normal here. At least, not normal by my standards: good grades, good books, good college... good, good, good. Ick. Not using the word good for the next twenty-four hours._

"Don't know". He's truthful about it. "School is a waste of time." He stops her protest before she has a chance to voice it.

"Not you, Ror."

She shuts up.

_And again, this is Jess Mariano. Who is not Rory Gilmore. Meaning we're two different people. Of course we are, or this would be gross. And improbable. And a paradox if I've ever heard of one. Ok Gilmore, stop right there._

But she understands what he's saying.

"Love is clockworks

and cold steel"

"You're thinking about it, though... you aren't giving completely up?"

Her voice is so hopeful he has to give her something.

"Thinking. No decisions made yet" And he's not lying. He's considering his options. And as he feels her hold on him tightening, he ticks them off in his mind, wondering what the best one could be. He knows she's doing the same.

"Love is drowning in a deep well

all the secrets and noone to tell"

_G.E.D._

_Night courses._

_Summer school._

_Retaking 12th._

None of them sound appealing, and none sound strongly disappealing either.

_Huh_.

He also needs to check one more thing, before the decision making progress goes under way.

"A little death without mourning

no call and no warning

Baby... a dangerous idea

that almost makes sense"

"Rory?" He's gotta ask. He needs to.

"Mmm?"

"It's still 22.8 miles, right?" a hint of fear in his voice.

"Last time I checked" she deadpans, but something inside of her is doing flipturns and cartwheels.

"Oh my love

blindness"

**A/N: check bio. No kidding. Meaning of life hidden there. :)**


	4. Born to Run

Disclaimer. Not mine. Don't Sue. Bastard out of Carolina belongs to Dorothy Allyson, and A Grave Talent belongs to Lauren R King. Born to Run belongs to the Boss himself, whose voice and talent I wish I owned, but don't.

A/N: This fic is becoming way too emotional. But it seems to be working. Thoughts, impressions, opinions welcomed as always.

In my Gilmoreverse, Rory is mad as hell at Chris, and she hasn't seen or talked to him or Sherry since.

Chapter 4: Born to Run

11PM

'Not so easy' topics.

Fathers. Mothers. Families.

Rory and Jess are curled up with a book each. He's reading Bastard out of Carolina, she's reading A grave Talent. This isn't a Hemingway vs Rand night. He sighs. He hasn't picked the best book here, what with the disappearing father and the angst.The word bastard on the birth certificate. But DeMille just doesn't cut it tonight, with his veteran of any war ever fought themes, the baggage they lug along, and the not so hidden sadistic tendencies pertaining to some character or other.

The CD is still playing on the background. It's Born to Run. Springsteen. It's late at night and The Clash may very well wait until morning.

"In the day we sweat it out in the streets of a runaway American Dream"

**Flashback**

"So what were you thinking?"_ He lets himself show anger, pretending not to know it hides feelings of betrayal._

"Jess, I don't like your father very much."_ Understatement of the century. And the winner is..._

"So because you don't like him, that means I can't know he's here?"_ Did you check the birth certificate recently? Jess James Mariano, son of James Mariano. Where does Luke Danes get off in taking over?_

"Shouldn't have come from me in the first place."_ Hell no. It shouldn't have come at all!_

"So what, you don't think you owed it to me to tell me, prepare me?" _My father. My freaking father. And you hide this information from me? Why? What for?_

"No, Jess, I didn't. With everything that's going on here with you, I kinda hoped he'd just walk away, but. . .once again, Jimmy makes the wrong move. What a shock." _Jimmy doesn't need the second chances I've been giving you all this time, kid. _

"Oh, who the hell are you to decide what the right move is?" Jess' thoughts flow out him in a single question. _Giving you the short version here, hope you're happy with synthesis._

I'm the one who's saving your ass constantly. I'm the one who just wrote a check to Kyle's father so he wouldn't press charges against you. I'm the one trying to knock some sense into that thick head of yours about the future." _And if that's not enough, I house you, I feed you, I fight with Lorelai because of you and over you because you're 'family. And you take care of family' _

"Oh, here we go." _And I was wondering how long it would take us to get to that._ And along with that thought comes a realization: _here is the guy who's been playing parent for the past two years._

**End of Flasback**

Rory peeks from her book. She studies him, as word by word the book hits him a little too close to home. She trains her eyes on his crinkiling brow, his unruly hair, his troubled brown irises, mirror to an even more troubled mind, housing no more than troubled thoughts. _That and hidden intelligence. _She thinks she might love him. In his strenght and his vulnerability, his stubborness and his tenderness. She jumps right out of her staring when he snaps the book close and considers hurling it across the room on the floor. She raises one questioning eyebrow while closing her own volume.

"The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive" Springsteen drawls.

Her boyfriend is a complete mess.

"Her father never comes back". He states simply.

"She's not better off because of it, though" She replies. _So this is the conversation we're going to be having. Fathers._ The word tastes bitter in her mouth. Mind. Whatever. It tastes bitter all the same.

"Her mother..." he trails off.

"She makes mistakes." Rory pauses, and Jess picks words out of thin air. They are hanging right there, it's only a matter of who says them first.

"It's not the mistakes she makes... it's her inability to right them."

Jess looks lost in his personal stroll down memory lane.

_Fathers and Mothers_ Rory muses_. Even worse when discussed together._

"She goes back to the step-father, this monster, over and over, while all the while he's hurting her daughter, doing all kinds of things to her. She can't choose." Jess strains to keep his voice even. He fails.

Rory eyes him carefully. _Who hurt you?_

She wants to voice that question as much as she needs air to breathe and coffee to survive the day. But contents herself with throwing him a bait.

"And mothers should put their children first, shouldn't they?"

"We gotta get out while we're young

'Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run"

_Yes they should. They should protect them, feed them, clothe them, help with homework, and steer clear of sleazeballs who are looking for the next fix of anything available on the market. And if it's pedophilia, who cares, right?_ Jess shakes his head, willing this thought to go back in the recesses of his mind.

"The girls comb their hair in rearview mirrors

and the boys try to look so hard" Springsteen docet

"How long since you talked to Christopher?" _Two fathers who pull disappearing acts like I pull apples from dishcloths, or she eats junk food. There must be something wrong with this picture, yet, unfortunately, it's the only one that fits the frame._

**Flashback**

"I'm not keeping Rory from you!" _God Chris, find a self help book, a Parenting for Dummies, one of those How to be a Father. Something! What am I, the Master of Puppets? Yup, that's me all right, straight out of a Metallica song. Rory thinks and feels, and you hurt her to the point she'll never recover. You shattered the last bit of trust she had in you!_

"Oh really? Then why hasn't she called me back, huh? I mean, no matter where you and I have been in our lives, my daughter has always called me back – until now" _She'll be always taking your side, Lor. As long as you stay angry at me, she'll be mad at me as well. Given the relationship you have, you'll confide in her. And given the love she feels for you, she'll be mad at me for leaving her, and for hurting you as well. And I need Rory in my life. She's my daughter. _

"Hey, listen to me –" _Rory is doing it on her own accord._ A thought left unexpressed.

"I didn't call you back because I didn't want to. Me – Mom had nothing to do with it." _I was in the deal as well. Your daughter, remember? Dad, don't you get it? I wanted this. A family like a good part of the world's youth has it. I was willing to forget the rest of your empty promises, Sherry, weeks andweeks without hearing from you, months on end without seeing you._

"Okay, honey, calm down." _Worked up Rory, not good._

"You promised me. You promised me at Sookie's wedding that this was going to work, that you were going to be there, you promised me." _And this is the last promise I'm going to let you break. The last time I let you hurt me. The last shit I'll ever take from you. The last time I'm letting you hurt Mom._

"Honey, please understand – " _that this time I was for real._ Another thought left unexpressed.

"No, I always understand, and I don't wanna understand! I don't even really wanna talk about this right now. I've got Mom, that's all I need. Go be somebody else's dad!" _I'm jealous._ The realization hits her like a ton of bricks, but it's not that unexpected. _I am jealous._

**End Flashback**

"Cause tramps like us

baby we were born to run"

"I wanted him when we lived in the shed at the Inn, when I had nightmares of monsters hiding in the bathroom. I wanted him there for every spelling bee, and every A, and every trip to the bookstore. I wanted him when Mom had to humiliate herself and force the both of us through the weekly dinner torture so I could go to Chilton, and live the fucking dream! I wanted him there for every single thing he wasn't there for!" Rory relives the anger she felt months before, when she stopped talking to Chris.

Jess nods, pulling her closer to him. This emotional storm is far from leaving her alone. Now she's as much of a mess as he is. This time it is him who bites on the fabric of her shirt, before finding the courage to speak quietly.

"I wanted mine too, for a while... The first time I got in a fistfight.All the timesI had to run so fast I thought my lungs would burst.Whenever I felt broken and needed him to glue me back together... When I wanted someone to teach me how to fight back..." he smiles wrily "Liz wasn't the best example of standing up for yourself. Doesn't even know how to spell the word 'no'." He shakes his head.

They hang onto each other tightly. This night is becoming too much for both, but it is a battle that needs fighting in the mess they managed to make of their relationship. Keeping secrets, witholding information, holding out on trust. She on the account that he couldn't be trusted, he on the account she wouldn't be able to take it. They are both mistaken. She is finding it easy to trust him with herself. He is drawing strenght from her, strenght he didn't know was hers to give.

Holding each other they wait for the tide to subside, for the pain to ease a little, for their breathing to become easy and unstrained.

"Together Wendy we will live with the sadness

I'll love you with all the madness in my soul"

He caresses her letting his hands wander down her back and up her side, down her arms to tickle her palms. Down her back again to find their way under her shirt, to her skin. She acknowledge this with a little moan.

"Someday girl I don't know when

we're gonna get to that place

where we really wanna go"

She lays her head on his chest, letting her lips trail little kisses on his skin, her hair tickling him, her free hand writing words on his chest by means of her fingers.

"And we'll walk in the sun

but till then tramps like us

baby we were born to run".

Yeah. Run. Just like their fathers have been for the past 18 years.

**A/N: go look at the bio. Everything you'll ever need to know is there. Really, trust me. :)**


	5. Slow Dancing

Disclaimer: don't own 'em, so sue me if I'm using 'em. Slow Dancing belongs to U2. Angels with Dirty Faces belongs to Sum 41. The Sun Also Rises belongs to Hemingway. Which, by the way, I still have to read.

Chapter 5: Slow Dancing.

12.30 AM

Sum 41's Angels With Dirty Faces is coming to an end.

"Now it's got a hold on me

the less I do the more it makes no sense."

Sleep eludes Jess and Rory, Morpheus being a teasing lover who slides playfully within reach, only to retreat the very second he feels the grasp beginning to clutch. The couple has grown accostumed to this game and plays along. Probably Sum 41 doesn't help. Tonight music shares, along with books, the lifeline role. Eliminating it would mean amputating a limb to this experience. Less hanging-onto surface, something neither wants. Jess hums something, his eyes roaming Rory's face, her body, up and down, and up again, wanting to take in her tired, a little disheveled beauty.

He thinks he might love her, with her hidden rebellion and the invisible shackles he'll soon promise to help her remove. With her innocence and her well hidden scars. She stands at attention, by the stereo, examining the music selection, and listens to him intently before selecting yet another of Lane Kim's patented mixes.

_And this is where __l think Lane has too much time on her hands. _She is amused by her own thoughts, knowing Lane Kim has been, lately, keeping herself busywith a certain tall, a little dorkish, but sweet guitar player.

"My love is cruel as the night

she steals the sun, and shuts out the light

all of my colors, they turn to blue

win or lose"

Jess throws her a little smile, which simultaneously reaches his eyes and her heart.

_I would willingly stop the world to hold this moment a little longer_. And finds her breath not easily retrievable.

Not at all put off by Jess's scrutiny, she turns to him, on a crusade to have his touch. A crusade that needs no fighting, for he immediately obliges, giving her access to personal space and warmth by means of a kiss and an embrace.

"She does it slow dancing

slow dancing

she does it slow dancing all night long"

Her blue eyes making like the sea as he ventures in them, his gaze taking a plunge off the deep end for a long underwater swim. Drowning has never been such an excruciating necessity.

**Flashback**

"So here we are" _Lame! Really lame._

"Yup, here we are. Wow, I haven't seen it since you guys redid it." _Huh._

"Oh yeah" _Huh._

"It's bigger." _Right Gilmore, keep at it and win the prize for small talker of the year._

"Ripping a wall down can have that effect on a room " _Smooth Mariano, really smooth. Lay off the freaking sarcasm._

"Yeah. That part, over there." _Bed. Jess. Jess sleeps there. Me in bed with... Gilmore! Don't you even venture there. Not that it's gonna happen anytime soon, as you seem to have forgotten the basics of kissing. First, you need to be physically able to touch the guy, then you put your lips like this, then he puts his lips like that, then you watch out for your noses, 'cause if they clash it's embarassing, then you open your mouth..._

But some part of her is happy for that mental picture. She is unshackled. Gone is the guilt that threatened her sanity, gone the ache that had wrapped her heart in a stranglehold, gone the granite slate crushing her lungs.

"That's mine."_ Wanna share? What part of the bed do you sleep on? Isn't it a little early for this conversation? We aren't even dating yet. We aren't even touching yet, which is why we're up here in the first place..._

And the fight is over, its usefulness forgotten. He relinquishes the anger coiled in his stomach like a snake poised to strike, the all effacing need to hurt her as much as he had felt her hurting him relentlessly since their first kiss.

The moment they willingly stop enforcing distance upon each other, distance chooses to enforce itself upon them.

"Yeah." _Ok, I'm moving towards him any second now... yup, any second my feet are gonna move and... _Rory can't move, rooted to her spot. The tension in the room is as thick as butter, a knife could easily slice a big hunk out of it, to be spread on their uneasiness, and served with a side of awkwardness. Oh, and would you like a tall glass of embarassment sprinkled with bashfulness? Just to help you along.

"Yeah. You want a soda?"_ And that is supposed to help the situation? How? This situation is beyond help!_

"No, I'm fine." _Nervous enough. No more caffeine. For now._

"Okay. You sure you don't want a soda?"_ She over there, me over here. Not good._

"Yeah, I'm sure." _Cut it Jess! I'm not dehydrating! I'm just extremely uncomfortable!_

Their goal shall not be attained, or forgone, without a struggle.

"Please let me get you a soda. I gotta do something other than stand here like a moron." _Logical thought just left the building. Please prepare yourselves for purple rain, flying pigs, and dancing jellyfish. Jess Mariano lost the attitude. Chaos will ensue._

He's not used to being uncomfortable. But he needs her to know he is, that he isn't used to it. He is the king of being comfortable in uncomfortable situations, his trademark "I don't give a care" stance allows him to go by unabashed, usually untouched by events. He always has the situation under control. More than one situation under control at once, if need be. He's mastered and perfected the art of multy-tasking, but now it doesn't seem to come in handy. He lost all ability in managing coherence and action in the space of a couple of seconds. Two things that until a minute ago went very well together with little or no effort on his part.

_Huh._

"Take comfort in the fact that you are not doing it alone" _Thank you Dodger..._

"Okay, let's just regroup here"_ Geez. Go stick your head in the freezer. Go read the Webster's. Go buy a vocal. A whole wagonload of vocals and a few consonants while you're at it. Do something! But regroup? Who uses the word regroup?_

"Yeah, regroup." _Regroup? Regroup? How do we regroup when the tension's so high a spark could blow the room apart?_

But the tension can't tear her away from her newfound sense of happyness. She belongs here, with him, in this umcomfortable situation. She does not see another possible outcome for their combined actions. Spoken and unspoken words, gestures performed or witheld, wishes, dreams and thoughts have all been leading up to this awkward, anxiety ridden, exhilaratingly liberating moment. She'd dance, and twirl on herself until ditziness could come and claim her as her own, for all the world to see, were she not concentrating on the matter at hand.

"First of all, we should try to get within, say, a foot of each other" _Closeness. We need to get closer. I really don't want to make Plato prouder than he already is. We need to get there, to go ahead._

"Okay. I think that's about a foot." _Oh... Closer... Do something, Dodger, or I'll gladly stand here and stare at those chocolate puddles of yours for the rest of my life._

"Huh, that school of yours is really paying off."_ What was that about sarcasm?_

"So, now what?" _Well, Gilmore, you can always discuss the political ramifications of the Marshall Plan. He'll go for that._

"Now we should. . . " _Your turn, blue eyed beauty. Next move's all yours._

"Well, I think we either need to get a little closer or need to warm up." _Take the lead, Dodger. Let me dance with you. _

"Okay. Hi" _Contact._

Hands holding, fingers twining, foreheads touching, gazes unwaveringly locked, lips almost brushing...

"Hi." _Contact._

**End of Flashback**

"Scarlet eyes and a see through heart

she saw me coming right from the start

she picked me up, but had me down on my knees

just a'beggin'her, beggin'her please"

They share hungry kisses that taste of coffee, sleep, tears, laughter. They share heated embraces given with roaming hands, cajoling caresses meant to tease a little, expecting a little comeback. Tonight, they share the bed housing the cuddles. This is what they give each other, while slowly unpacking their emotional luggage, laying it open for later dissection, problem solving, damage controlling. Later being the key word opening this door. Heavily breathing with racing hearts and boiling blood they pull back from this embrace, flushed faces give them away, but it isn't a new discovery. It isn't even a secret anymore.

Jess lays his head to Rory's stomach, pushing away the fabric so he can feel her wamth. Her hands twirl in his messy hair, and as he mouths the words to this U2 into her skin, he feels rather than hearing her sing along.

"And I don't know a man

search for himself in his lover's eyes

no I don't know why a man

sees the truth but needs the lies"

She understands. He understand. As they move slightly so as to lock gazes, chocolate with sapphire, for the unmpteenth time, while Bono Vox strains

"My love is restless as the wind

she moves like a shadow across my skin"

both of them acknowledge what just transpired without a word. On a night like this, the meaning of the word clichè is lost to all half-slumbering lovers.

"She left with my conscience, I don't want it back

it just gets in the way"

_So there. I'll trade mine in for a new copy of The Sun Also Rises. Who knows, maybe it is worth a few first editions... I mean, after all we're talking about a conscience._ Morpheus' elusiveness can do this to even the smartest man on Earth. And Jess is a pretty smart guy. Who has the "take all you can get for the least amount of giving" logic down to a second nature.

_It does, doesn't it? Then I will gladly give mine to someone who needs yet another hurdle to jump. Me, I'm through jumping. I'll skip. I'll cavort. I'll frolick. But hurdle jumping has been ticked off my list._ Combine said elusiveness with a innate ability to ramble, and you've got Rory's jumbled thoughts. Handle with care. Not meant to be analyzed. Useable as knick knacks.

The understanding has come and gone, filed away among the memories in the making. The meaning is there, and they will mull it over in the morning. As the last

"Slow dancing, slow dancing"

rolls off, said moment tangles through their hair, in the sheets, through the rumpled pages of the discarded books, weaving itself through the very texture of the air they breathe. It shrouds them like a blanket.

He has told her he loves her. And he's feeling no regrets.

She has told him she loves him. And she's feeling no fears.

**A/N: my author notes are all in my bio. Feel free to go and browse- the fic is for the fic only. Personal business on the bio. M.**


	6. We Are Two Brixton Prisoners

Disclaimer. Not mine, so sue me if I'm using 'em. 88 belongs to Sum 41. Guns of Brixton belongs to the Clash. We Are belongs to Ana Johson...and maybe to Spidey 2. Alice in Wonderland belongs to Lewis Carroll

A/N: Loving the feedback more with each passing day. I'm bumping the rating up, just to be on the safe side. Tell me whether it's right or not.

In my Gilmoreverse, but I believe wherevere there might be intelligent life thriving, 3 AM is not the perfect time to quote books. Hence, Jess Mariano and Rory Gilmore will resume literary banter in the morning.

Chapter 6: We Are Two Brixton Prisoners.

3 AM

Books lay discarded and forgotten by the side of the slumbering, emotionally drained couple. They aren't properly sleeping, more like weaving in and out of drowsyness. Morpheus' tyring of being elusive, sleep comes a little more easily, although in short spells that do little for the ultimate purpose or resting. A stirring, a lingering kiss on tingling skin, and chocolate eyes drift open to search for sapphire ones, and upon completing the quest proceed to the quelling of the worry in the owner.

"You're still here, aren't you?" _I'm still here. She's still here. We're both still here._

_Huh. _

Somehow, he's been fearing she'd taken flight during the night, untangling herself from the cocoon weaved of silence, feelings, music, words, thoughts that they'd weaving about them since the afternoon.

He shouldn't have.

_I shouldn't have._

"Afraid I wouldn't be with you when you woke up?" The question is asked lightly, drowsily, but the undertones it carries aren't easily dismissed.

_I'm right here, Dodger. See me, touch me, kiss me. Not pulling a Chris, or a Jimmy. _That conversation, that particular outburst hurts like an open wound. But an open wound halfway through healing process, at least where it concerns her. _That's progress, isn't it?_

Jess Mariano is fighting a loosing and futile war to salvage some part of his ego.

"Yeah. Pretty much."_ Huh. Why on earth did I just admit to that?_

It's too late to hold fortresses. Somehow, somewhere, both have abandoned defense mechanisms, ignored strategies and dismissed armies. There is no second-guessing moves and motives, there is no scheming and planning taking place. Whatever might be coming will be concerning love, not battle, and even Jess Mariano and Rory Gilmore know when put weapons in their rightful storage place, never to be seen again.

The CD is still going on in the background. As it rolls around to the end, it is Jess who wanders over to the stereo in order to choose the musical selection, and he sifts through Lane Kim's patented mix-burns slightly amazed at the sheer amount of music Rory owns. _That girl really has too much time on her hands._ Rory finds herself thinking yet again. It is her turn to scrutinize minutely Jess, and her eyes roam him freely, absorbing his sulky beauty, made even more apparent by the lack of rest. At some point, he has pulled off his shirt.

They are still, to some extent, held captive, both longing to exchange manacles, chains, lock for freedom. Or exchange their current prison for another they would willingly enter, shackled to each other and entangled to the point of no return. A way out. Any way out would do.

"Though nothing's gonna change  
I hope someday you have it all"

She belongs to a golden cage, but it is torturous none the less.

He lays, bound in obscure secret chambers, and it is slowly killing him.

Together, they are faced with high brick walls and steel barriers. Wherever they turn, there is something blocking their escape routes. Every sound uttered their way is an accusation disguised as suggestion, opinion, harmless conversation. They know it isn't so.

"If we could all depend

on what we know"

**Flashback**

"How could Jess get me hurt?"_ Jess wouldn't hurt me. He's practically me, male version. With the hard city edge._

"I don't know, hon. In the short amount of time he's been here, he's managed to make a lot of enemies"_ Namely, me. Because if he enters the equation while you're growing up, you'll change... you'll stray._

"I'm sorry, when did I move to Salem?"_ This is insane. This is witch-hunting. She of all people should understand. She should be able to see what he hides, the way he talks to me... _Then somewhere asmall window opens,and a little light seeps through. _She doesn't trust me. She doesn't trust me around him._

"People are concerned about you, you know? You're young and naïve and you think that everyone has some good inside if you give them a chance" _People. Me and Dean. 'Cause Jess__'ll influence and you'll be slipping through my grip, and you'll no longer be the Rory I know. 'Causeyour boyfriendfeels your relationship is unraveling in front of his eyes as we speak. 'Cause we see what you aren't even aware of hiding._

"So you're saying that Jess is no good?" _I happen to think he's the best thing that happened to Stars Hollow in... Oh... Forever._ She startles herself with this thought, and makes a hasty, guilty correction. _Well. Since Dean. Of course._

"I've known guys like Jess. He seems cool because he's got this dangerous vibe and this problem with authority and he's seen a lot of Sylvester Stallone movies." _And he thinks he can sail through life with his badass attitude, his chip on his shoulder, his horrible comments. He thinks he can steal you away._

"Oh my God." _Sylvester Stallone? Have you looked at him? He's... Tiny... Oh, Mom... there is the Jess he will never show. The boy that loves Hemingway, and writes on Howl. The boy that worries whether you like a certain pizza topping, and is willing to forsake half of it so you can eat it. The boy who will destroy a snowman so you'll be able to win the competition. Is he the dangerous disaster-waiting-to-happen you are so set on shielding me from? I'll keep him, I'll risk it, thanks for the advice though... Still... Sylvester Stallone?_

"But guys like this get into trouble which, if you hang out with them, gets you into trouble and I don't want you to get into trouble." _He's like ayounger, angrier, enhanced version of Chris. He's Chris 2.0. Look at me Rory, this is what happens when girls like you trust themselves around people like Jess._

**End of Flashback**

"'Cause I feel like a prisoner

trapped inside this broken world"

What is the world made of? For all she knows she isn't holding in place with her actions. For all she knows, Jess isn't doing any holding either.

The late hour, the lack of sleep, Jess' mere presence in her room, Morpheous's teasing games... she could blame her actions on each of those, but she already knows that, come morning, she'll be holding herself accountable. She also knows she will not regret a single word, thought, or gesture brought forth throughout this night.

She's sitting up, half against the headboard, half propped up against Jess' chest, one leg dangling off the edge of the bed, the other bent at a righ angle, with Jess's finger traveling lightly up and down the distance between her knee and her hip bone. That feather like touch is enough send her blood coursing through her arteries at an unhealty rate. His other arm is wrapped around her at the waist, lightly tickling her side. She finds herself interlacing fingers with him, pushing herself so she's sitting completely on his lap, her back still to his chest, and bringing his hands to the hem of her shirt. His lips burn her delicate skin as they travel up her neck, and breath tickles her ear as he asks her to stop him if she feel uncomfortable. The song on the CD switches to We Are.

"See the devil on the doorstep now,

my oh my"

She can barely manage to nod, as his hands smoothly slide under her shirt, caressing her skin, drawing little circles around her elegant navel, exploring the uncharted territory they are finally allowed to cross. The tips of his fingers teasingly draw lines along her side, and she doesn't know whether her body is flinching, or responding to excitement, or fighting the tickling.

"Time is ticking and we can't go back

my oh my"

His lips shower kisses all over her neck. His hands climb the stepladder of her ribcage, rib by rib, until they manage to skim her breasts, and she jumps.

"You keep watching from the picket fence

you keep talking but it makes no sense

you say we're not responsible but we are"

He stops, looking at her expectantly. Her next actions leave him bewildered, to say the least. She turns around to straddle him, fixes her sapphire on his chocolate eyes, desire darkening, deepening gazes and, holding it till the last possible moment, bends to the familiar texture of his lips. This, however, isn't what sends Jess reeling.

It is, rather, what she seems to be intent on accomplishing: his arms are drawn under her shirt again as she guide his fingers up her tummy, around the sides of her torso, releasing them to rest on her nipples.

She shivers.

"It's all about power then"

_Is this what it feels like?_ She just about gives up on rationality.

It is the way her legs move, so she's wrapping them around his waist, trapping him.

_And for the life of me, why should I be wanting to escape?_

"Breaking the rule

breaking the soul"

It is the way they are kissing.

It is the way her hands are doing some wandering exploration of their own, racking up and down his spine, sending small electrical jolts to his sinapses.

His turn to shiver.

It is the way their hips start motions on their own accord, no permission given, sending both hurtling straight into sensory overload.

It is the feel of skin on skin, as her shirt is pulled out the way.

_Oh, God._

Coherent thought has long left the building, leaving behind just enough common sense to stop, were Rory to say so. But right now, she doesn't.

"We've never been so many

we've never been so alone"

**Flashback**

"What do you think is gonna happen?" _Oh, I get it. I'm going to take the town princess and turn her into a regular Nancy. I'm going to shatter her. I'll be the end of her. _

"You know what I think is gonna happen_" Don't make me say it. Hell. Don't even let me think about Rory and you doing something more than hand holding. And that is even too much..._

"No I don't. Tell me. Tell me what I'm gonna do to her" _God, Luke, look at me. I'm... a pile of mush. I'm not in on this for the sex. You don't take on a Gilmore and jump her bones. Doesn't work that way. You don't pine for a year just so you get her in bed... You don't sit in your room, hoping you'll catch a glympse of sapphire blue. Or hoping she'll call you to discuss books. You don't spend 90 bucks on a basket and all your spare change on long distance calls. You don't stay up all night at a stupid marathon so you can look at her. You don't worry about her while she's in the hospital you put her in, or on the bus leaving New York she's taking 'cause she came to see you. You don't know how hard it is to restrain yourself from holding her until she relaxes and kissing water from her face while she's standing there, soaking wet and panicked. You don't miss her like crazy because you know what it feels like to kiss her and she won't let you near her again. You don't know how rotten you feel while playing with another person's feelings, while all the while someone's toying with yours. None of that happens if you're only in it for the sex. I'm not gonna do anything to her. _

Jess startles himself out his internal tirade enough to listen to his uncle and his absurd reasoning.

"You're not gonna do anything to her because when you're at her place, there's Lorelai, and when you're here, there's me, and when you're out there, there's Taylor." _One more word, Jess, and I'll be throttling you. Don't you even mention doing anything to Rory, the very idea makes me nauseous. And that is the only time I'll ever say something positive about Taylor_.

"Romeo and Juliet had warring families and they still managed to do a little damage, you know?" _Star-crossed lovers. Huh. _He likes the comparison.The image fits_. Hicksville CT in its entirety will be watching. Luke and Lorelai first and foremost. They'll all be trying exta hard to convince her that there's something wrong in her decision making process, and the outcome of said process, namely choosing me over Bag Boy is wrong. This relationship is going to throw a lot of people off. Some might have to reconsider life-long held beliefs, change creed, swap sexual orientation._

His bitterness bites the back of his throat as his thoughts turns frommushy happyness to resentful anger.

"Well, as soon as I catch you in a pair of tights, I'll get worried. Until then, do your homework" _So there. Nothing is going to go on. We can all calm down and go about our own business. Lorelai won't panick, Rory won't get hurt, and Jess will keep his hands off of her. And please, spare the mental image of my nephew in tights, along with all the others. He's obnoxious enough._

**End of Flashback**

Oddly enough, Jess finds himself whispering to Rory all about that conversation. As he alternates kisses to her lips and breathing to her ears, she smiles at him, her eyes now merry and untroubled. He even manages to give her a somewhat edited version of his thoughts at the time, which has her laughing, her arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders, her shaking body pressed to his.

"Oh God..." she catches her breath "You are a pile of mush." She smiles broadly.

"And if these words leave this room, I'll deny them to my dying day" He deadpans, but can't help first smirking, then giving in to the small smile playing on his lips.

"So, how's Egypt this time of year? Will you take me on a trip there?" She snikers as he attempts to glare at her, failing miserably, her laughter once again contagious and irresistible. He watches as she puts her shirt back on, hiding the sight that threatened to drive him out of his rational mind.

The Clash make a token appearance with the Guns of Brixton. Bittersweet memories wash over them, as each separately recalls that infamous evening.

"I'm sorry." he breathes in her ear. He caresses the wrist the cast used to be on, places a tender kiss on her swollen bottom lip.

"You can crush us

you can bruise us

but you'll have to answer to

oh, the guns of Brixton"

Rory's grip on reality slips for a very brief second, as she feels herself tumbling through the White Rabbit's hole. She almost expects to find herself seated at the Mad Hatter's table, having a Merry Unbirthday party, or looking for the Cheshire Cat. She resists the urges to thumb through her books, to see whether they say the same things, whether words and letters still hold the same meaning, hell, whether the words are still there.

_Jess Mariano said I'm sorry to me. Jess Mariano. Huh. __He should know it's not his fault. He should know I don't hold him responsible._

She does neither of those things, though, takes no action in no direction whatsoever. She contents herself with reciprocating the kiss he is giving her, and to lay herself once again next to him on the bed, his arms holding her in their gentle, safe embrace. His words take their rightful place in the cocoon weaving process.

"I'm sorry" he breathes out again._ Mariano, what is wrong with you tonight? What are apologizing to her for?_

Her words echo his thoughts to the last letter.

"What are you apologizing for?"

"For all the crap I've been pulling lately." He states simply. _Great. Just great. The Pile of Mush makes his presence known once again._

Rory sighs and shakes her head.

"Let me get back to you on that." She states seriously. "I don't know if I love you enough to accept an apology." _Great. Just great. Way to ruin everything._ Then she remembers what transpired a few hours previous, heck, a few minutes previous, and simply waits, curious as to what his response will be. She has acknowledged and accepted her love for him. Now it is going to be his turn to flirt with acceptance and acknowledgement.

"Whoa, there, go back a second." _You, stop beating so damn hard! I can't fucking hear myself think. _

The pounding in his chest does not subsize.

"To what?" She replies innocently "Let me get back to you on that?"

"No, after that" _Come on, Blue Eyed beauty, I need you to tell me._

"Accepting it?" She teases him.

"Before that" He groans, annoyed with her antics. _Scared shitless is more like it._

"I love you?" She places it timidly in the air surrounding them.

"Huh". _Oh. God. Rory Gilmore said I love you to me. Rory. Gilmore. Mariano, snap out of it. Say something, anything._

"Huh?" _Dodger._

"I love you." _There. Said it. The world is officially turning upside down. Tomorrow Luke will be drinking coffee, Lorelai will be eating salad, and my mother will have a brain._

He places his words in the air surrounding them, next to hers. They mingle. They breed. They form threads. The cocoon keeps weaving itself around them, its innocent shrouding separating lovers from the rest of the night, their universe different and secluded from the rest of the cosmos. Tangled thoughts and secrets, words and emotions, feelings and music, gestures and printed sheets of paper. It belongs to them, and only to them, for it is woven with their thoughts and their secrets, their words and their emotions, their feelings and their music, their gestures and their printed sheets of papers.

"Better." She drawls out, before kissing him. _Gotcha. Mine_

Morpheus has long stopped playing his tricks. As they finally relinquish their minds to slumber, arms around each other, they also relinquish the burden of their emprisonment. She'll walk out of this night with her halo a little crooked and a little tarnished, instead of it being shiny and straight. Her feathers will be ruffled instead of smoothed out on her wings, and her gown will show wrinkles instead of the usual perfect fit. He'll walk out of this night with his sword securely in its shear instead of steadfastly held in his hand, his shield will be trailing by his side instead of being held in front of him, his armor will be missing pieces and showing chinks in place of its usual integrity.

They are breaking free of their self-constructed prisons.

She no longer is an angel. Gone is the town's princess, Star's Hollow Sweetheart.

He no longer is a warrior. Gone is the town's hoodlum, Star's Hollow Rebel Without a Cause.

"Goodnight Dodger."

"Goodnight Rory."

Morpheus stakes claim to them as they breathe those last four words to each other. The emotional storm seems to have subsized.

**A/N: check the bio. I promise it's worth it, since I hate author notes on the actual fic.**


	7. Lorelai Victoria Gilmore and Sleeping Sh...

Disclaimer: Don't own 'em, so sue me if I'm using 'em. I'm getting sick of this. One of these days I'll claim I own them, and won't it be fun then?

Oh, and by the way, this takes place on a week-end. It is now, currently, Sunday. No literacy banter. Somehow, they don't need it right now. Plus, I have to find something better than Nelson Demille, and am really not in the mood for the Oxford Complete Shakespeare.

Chapter 7: Lorelai Victoria Gilmore and Sleeping Shakespeare-Quoting Gut-Spilling Beauty.

That was how Lorelai found them when she managed to come home at 4.30 in the morning, cursing under her breath to whatever gods might be listening. Out of habit more than anything else she went to check on Rory, needing to take a look at her daughter in order to recapture some of her usual happy disposition... only to find her entwined with Jess on top of the blankets, disheveled hair and clothes askew.

_But still there_. She thought as her eyes adjusted to the penumbra.

She sighed and held on to the doorjamb, waiting for the panick attack to subsize, and examined the scene in front of her by the light seeping in the darkened room through the door from the hallway.

Jess looked... peaceful. His features were relaxed, his arms securely wrapped around her daughter from behind. Even in his sleep he seemed protective of her, and for the first time in the last couple of years she couldn't find him threatening but, oddly, endearing. And Rory... well, she looked her usual angelic self, but gone was the hurt that had so often shadowed her features during the past year. Hurt that, Lorelai knew, came from different sources: Christopher's defection, Jess's behavior, her own less than positive attitude when it came to dealing with this particular relationship. Lorelai stood there, wanting to take in every detail of this tableau. Somewhere, down in the reaches of her soul, she knew that this was probably going to be the last time she would be seeing Rory sleeping with her innocence intact. Pretty soon her she would relinquish her innocent self to Jess, in exchange for another step up along the growing up process, and a more adult Rory would come out of that experience. Lorelai could only hope her daughter would go at it with the best possible judgement, and trust her that no life-changing mistakes would be resulting from it.

On that last thought, she scribbled a note to leave on Rory's bedstand and climbed upstairs to go to sleep. Other, equally compelling problems would be waiting for her in the morning, and she needed as much sleep as she could get.

"Mini-me.

It's 4.30 AM and I really don't feel like throwing a screaming fit over the diner-boy in your bed. If we don't bump into each other in the morning, keep your cell on and send said diner-boy home, where he'll deal with a very disgruntled flannel wearing diner owning uncle.

Love you, Sweets.

Lorelai Victoria Gilmore."

10 AM

Rory blinks while reading the note her mother left her a few hours ago. Her mother signs herself with her full name as a joke.

_She must not be mad, then_.

Upon seeing Jess still asleep next to her she wills herself not to panick, as memories from the night before wash over her, and she relives briefly every moment, a smile tugging gently at her lips. She slips out of bed, relinquishes the warmth of his embrace, careful not to wake him. A change of clothes, a shower, a look in her mother's room, only to find her gone, a last run over to her room, where Jess is still sleeping, the jacket he had been wearing the night before and a little note to slip in his curled fist. She's out the door, under the rain and on her way to Luke's.

"Rory!" Luke cries as soon as she enters the diner, shaking off tiny water droplets "Where is Jess?" _Please don't tell me what I think you're going to be telling me. And Lorelai has taken over the building. Again. Please keep the coffee and the junk food stashed..._

Rory cringes, and motions Luke upstairs. _Please do not feed the gossips, and keep your hands clear of the cages at all times_. He obliges.

"Luke, promise you won't kill Jess" she pleads, when she sees Luke just about ready to grab a baseball bat.

"Jess is at my house, still asleep." _Bombshell dropped. Bracing self for atomic explosion._

"On the couch" Luke's hopeful reply dies on his lips when Rory shakes her head.

"My bed..." _Second bombshell. 5, 4, 3, 2..._

"Jesus!" _I'm beating the daylights out the punk the minute I find him!_

Luke grabs the baseball bat but Rory holds her own in front of the door.

"Luke, please. It's been a difficult night for both of us. Do you really think I would have let him do something I didn't want him to do?" she exchanges a glance with Luke, who relaxes and puts his baseball bat down. _Man is he uncomfortable._ He looks at Rory, and she seems different. Tired, yes, but... happy. Like the Rory he used to know, before the past year rolled around.

"You sure you're ok?"

"I'm ok. I really am." She looks at him. "I'm only telling you this because you killing Jess will make me very sad" they have to smile at her choice of words. "But I'm telling the man who had me growing up in his diner: nothing happened, so you can relax. But sometime soon..." she looks at Luke, who's battling his desire to cover his ears and hum along with his even bigger desire to kill his nephew, and releases the breath she's been holding when he nods at her.

"Ok. Just... you know... don't let him pressure you". But he doesn't think she needs that advice. _This Rory will not do anything more and nothing less than what she chooses._

"Breakfast?"

"To go, please." Luke looks at her expectantly, and she shrugs. "You know both of us well enough to take a wild stab at our breakfast preferences". He smiles, and gets chocolate chips pancakes ready for her, packs muffins for his nephew, coffee and milk to go.

"Oh, and Luke?" Rory calls, before exiting from the diner.

"What?"

"Hold off on kicking him out." She throws him, mistery spilling all over the place. He nods, mesmerized, as she heads off, under the downpour.

_Maybe, just maybe. _He muses. And goes back to filling coffee cups.

Jess awakens to the distinctive sounds of raindrops tapping on window pane. As he emerges from slumber and grows aware of his surroundings he feels something bothering his palm.

"'Morning Sleeping Shakespeare-Quoting, Gut-Spilling Beauty.

Don't panick if I'm not there when you come out of your slumber. I'll be back with breakfast.

And wake up kisses.

Rory"

_Now I'm confused._ Then he retrieves the information he filed away during the night, memories wash over him, and everything makes sense again. He should feel ashamed, exposed, and he should run out of there like the hounds of hell were at his heels... but for the life of him, he can't find his jacket. He shrugs, goes to the bathroom, performs his morning routine, and wanders over to the couch with the eternal paperback while waiting for Rory who, _Lupus in fabula_, steps through the front door with a bag from... Luke's.

_I'm leaving for California the minute Luke gets all of my stuff packed. This time New York is just not going to be far enough._

"Please don't look at me like that" she pleads, pouting.

"Huh?" _Cuddling, foreplay and sex induce clothes related kleptomania. Love induces kleptomania in general. And exactly why am I analizing the fact that Rory's wearing my jacket?_

"Like you're fearing for your life." She drops the food on the coffee table.

"Nice jacket. Looks good on you." _She looks like me._ He muses, as he takes in both her face and her demeanor, evidence of the emotional tsunami they allowed themselves the luxury to ride the previous night.

"You mean I look like you"_ I know. I don't regret a minute of it._ "Hey Dodger?"

**Flashback**

"You look nice."_ Nice? She is fucking beautiful. Perfect. Delicate. And I'm so flawed she'll never want to be within touching distance of me._

Move number 1: the stealing of the book. His.

Move number 2: the nickname Dodger. Hers

"Thank you. What are you doing here?" _Stop that. Please. It's wrong to have you coursing through my veins like that because of him. _Blood isn't known to listen carefully.

Move number 3: the basket. His

Move number 4: the phone call. Hers

"I moved back." _I tried tearing you from inside of me. Keep you at bay. Forbid you entrance. Not possible._

Move number 5: the care package. His

Move number 6: the tutoring. Hers.

"What?" _You hate it here, Dodger. You never wanted to be here. Oh God. He's here. Willingly... No._

Move number 7: the car ride. His

Move number 8: the trip to New York. Hers

"I moved back". _I had to. It works like this... _He has only just recently realized it himself. He knows for a fact she is still oblivious to the reality they've twisted to fit their lies throughout the past year. It is in her nature to deny andrefuse anything short of perfect._You step, and I step as well, keying my reaction off you. Your next action is influenced by my previous one. Are you following, Ms. Gilmore? Hope you've been taking notes, test's on Monday. _

Move number 9: the move back to Stars Hollow. His.

"But – what – why?" _For me. He's here for me. He came back because I am here_.

"Just wanted to" _You. I've staken claim to your blue eyed beauty, and I will have it. You cannot pull a stunt like coming to New York because I didn'tsay goodbye, of all things, and not expect me to pull something as big or as stupid to match. If you dance, I dance with you._

She launches herself into his arms, taking a dive to his lips, logical thought and common sense thrown in the river under the bridge, water carrying it away as both become caught up in this unknown, mysterious, undecypherable rush. The sensation is so foreign Rory feels her head spinning, her emotions run astray. Jess can't begin to undestand why his brain suddendly makes like the pages of a soaked book: blurry, wavy, uncomprehensible and useless. It is a whirlwind: months of held back, pent up tension and desire sweep through them, threatening to displace them, uncover them, reveal them. It is then that reality hits both like the proverbial ton of bricks. She all but takes a flying leap and a suicide run to get away from him as soon as possible.

Move number 10: the kiss. Hers.

"Oh my God! Oh my God!"_ Oh God. Ok, new word here. Jess. Me. Kiss._

"Rory"._ Wait. My move._

"Don't say a word!" _You, me, kissing. Oh God! Dean. I'm horrible. _

What Jess Mariano has no inkling of is Rory Gilmore's ability of becoming a full out olymipic sprinter, going for the 100 meter dash gold medal.

_If you dance, I dance._

Little does he know this dance is about to turn in a sick, obnoxious version of chess.

**End of Flashback**

"What?" he eyes her carefully, approaching her.

"Do I get a good morning kiss?" she asks, playfully, teasingly. She is already missing his warmth, his gentle touch and demanding lips, the explosions he sets off deep within her while doing something as innocent and as sinful as holding her hand in his. Feelings have a way of surfacing when least expected, when it is least appropriate for them to be in plain view, for the world to see, judge, partake on. It is even worse when they erupt like magma, lava from a vulcano, and destroy fragile Pompeis so carefully built. Cities so perfectly thought out, in fact, that they lack an alarm system, for it would lead to expect imperfection. And that is just not possible, is it?

**Flashback**

"There they go again! God, I swear, why can't they just get a room? Or forget a room – get a park bench, or a doorway, or even a strategically placed telephone pole would probably suffice. I mean, girls like Shane – what is it with them? Don't they see what they look like? I know they have mirrors." _Why do you flaunt it in front of me? Why are you so set on making me miss something I'm not supposed to be wanting..._

"Hey, you talking about me?" _Come on, Ror, didn't you say you could care less about Shane?_

"No."_ I just think about you every fucking waking moment._

"I heard you mention Shane." _And I care about her even less than you claim to. But you set the stakes, Ror, and I've taken you up on them. Suck it up._

"Shane isn't you." _Wow. Smart, Gilmore. A witty come back if I ever heard of one._

"Shane concerns me." _For the time being. Until she pulls a kiss and run, she can do whatever she wants._

"Shane concerns me, too – and all women, for that matter." _Hello, Suffragette City. Why am I insisting on Shane? Shane isn't the issue. You are. You who don't understand you had me running scared. You who don't want to wait for me to grow used to you. You... whom I want. And I can't have. Dean. I have Dean. There is a Dean in my life._

"You got a problem here?" _Your problem being I didn't sit around waiting for you for six weeks? Or your problem being you deciding I wasn't worth you owning up to your side of the deal?_

" Nope. Just a little sick of seeing the two of you sitting there. If you're not gonna participate, then why don't you just leave?"_ Go away. Leave me at least my illusions, seeing you shattered my world with your irruence, and left me to pick up the pieces._

"That works for me. Let's go." _Away, far far away from this bunch of freaks._

"No." _Hell no. I am staying._

"Why not?"_ Leave me alone. You won't let me have you, and you claim not to want me, and I pretend to not want you , and I force myself not to let you have me, yet you strive to make it hurtful. Why make it this difficult? Why make it this much harder?_

"Because I'm not ready to go."_ No. I need to look at you.Watch you. See for myself if this is really the world you want, the reality you claim to belong to._

"Oh really?" She feels her resolve crumble, fear shaking her deep within her, heart wrenching, pulled in all sorts of direction.

"Yes, really. I'm gonna sit here as long as I like, and I'm gonna do whatever I like, and if you don't like it, then just ignore me and pay attention to your boyfriend." _Don't start crying,_ he screams, begs, pleads silently with her, as he sees her sapphire eyes swim with the confused, hurtful tears he knows he caused.

He tastes revenge. It's not cold. It's not sweet. It's not satisfactory.

**End of Flashback**

He feels himself longing for the now familiar feeling of her body pressed agains his. Now he doesn't have to restrainthe lava coursing through his body, for she requests it, owns it, as he owns and commands the fiery magma boiling inside of her. It takes a moment to travel the distance separating them. It takes even less than that for them to tangle fingers, lips, tongues. Parting with personal space has never felt better. His hands slide easily to mess with her hair, to caress the skin close to her mouth, to tickle and tease her neck...

...and to latch onhis jacket's buttons, tearing it open, pushing it off her shoulders and pulling it away from her arms in one fluid motion.

"What... how.. hey!" Rory glares.

"Wanted my jacket back", he shrugs, smirking carelessly at her.

She keeps glaring.

He keeps smirking.

He leans in.

She follows his lead.

And they are dancing again to their soundless tune, cocoon wrapped tightly about their universe.

"Mornin'"

"Mornin'"

"Food!" She jumps from his embrace and heads over to the coffee table. He doesn't object, his own stomach is about to engage in autodigestion.They eat silently, gathering their thoughts and examining the outcome of the previous evening. Rory slings one of her legs on top of Jess's as they work through their breakfast, the fabric of their cocoon wrapped tightly about them for inspection and analysis.There is more than one conversation that needs to be held. But all of that can wait, simply because... it can be talked about without wreaking havoc on either of them. This knowledge singlehandedly adds strenght to their relationship. Another thread to their invisible shroud.

"Sleeping Shakespeare-quoting, gut-spilling beauty?" He asks.

She smiles beautifully, sapphire blues twinkling with mischief.

"I think it fits."

"You would." He deadpans, but can't stop answering her smile with a smirk. He chances a kiss, and is met halfway by her lips crashing with a direct hit on his. She climbs on his lap, mimicking the position she held the previous night, and places butterfly kisses all over his face, as she allows his hands to roam and wander through now charted territory. She tastes of coffe and chocolate, he tastes of milk and blueberries. He bites gently at the tender skin between her neck and her shoulder, and she tilts her head back, heart racing, breath ragged. Her fingers slide up his shirt, requesting him to take it off. He obliges, before bringing both her and himself off the couch to standing positions, giving in to the compelling need of tugging off her blouse, and molding his body to hers.

"Jess?" she draws herself away with a large amount of her willpower doing most of the work.

"What?"

"I may not be there every time you wake up" she whispers "but I'll be whithin reach."

He nods, swallowing whatever it is that it's not allowing him to breathe properly.

"I can deal with that.", his lips feel warm against her ear. She can just master a shudder. And gives in to the pounding heart and the rushing blood.

Of the smoldering kisses and the wandering hands. They play their game of give and take, as he smiles down at her and nudges her arms to wrap around his neck, picking her up, seemingly without noticeable effort, and letting her legs circle around his waist. He starts carrying her to her bedroom when the ringing of the doorbell startles them; enough for him to almost drop her to the floor.

"Jess!" _Don't let go of me just yet. Don't let me slip back to reality. It's dull._

"Wait" He overbalances towards the wall, so that her back his pressed against it while she regains her footing. She finds her shirt and throws it back on, shooting him an apologetic look as she runs to the door. _I am going to kill whoever had the insane idea to come by this morning. I swear. Stars Hollow, prepare for bloody murder.This time the chalk outline will be all too real._

**A/N: Check my bio for messages and thanks to reviewers. M**


	8. A Pure Maiden From the Moon

Disclaimer: I own the characters you don't recognize. Everyting else belongs to their rightful owner.

I searched the net. Rhiannon means either "pure maiden" or "goddess of fertility and of the moon." It's Gaelic, Welsh, and I love it. I'm gonna call my daughter that.

Jason is either Jason or Jase.

Erika is either Erika, Kyka or Kycks.

We step in the wide realm of AU. This chapter is bridging the distances from here to there, sinceI couldn't find a way to have Jess open up to Rory about his past. I think the guy went through enough gut spillage as it is. Hence, I had the past come to him, forcing him, for want of a better word, to speak to her while coming to terms with it.

Chapter 8: A Pure Maiden From the Moon.

_I'm hating you. Whomever you might be, whatever you could possibly want. I. Hate. You_.

These words chant through Rory Gilmore's head as she reaches the door, smoothing out clothes and finger combing a hopelessly tangled mass of chestnut soft curls she'd like to call hair.

It could be anybody in Stars Hollow, no option being too far fetched, and for every one she has an automatic response stashed in the emergency file her mind is so busy retrieving...

It could be her mother, on a trip home to shake off the ugly inn-derived feelings, and seeking a mother-daughter talk with her.

_But I really don't want her to be home right now. That conversation can wait, so I can prepare..._

It could be her father, on one of his spur of the moment "let's play happy families" trips.

_But I'm really not up to that._

It could be Lane, asking for freedom, or girl talk, or boy problems.

_Seeing as my boy problem is standing half naked in my living room, that could be interesting._

It could be Paris during one of her "I'm going to fail all of my classes, and I'm holding you responsible for that if you don't study yourself into oblivion with me all afternoon!" meltdowns.

_But I'd much rather study something else. _She can almost hear her mother yelling. _Dirty! Well, I was having dirty thoughts..._

It could be Dean, with an olive branch and a reconciliatory offer after having beaten her boyfriend up at the party.

_And again, seeing that Jess is standing half-naked in my living room, that could really turn out ugly. I just convinced Luke not to go after him with a baseball bat..._

It could be Luke, tired enough of waiting for Jess.

_But I really don't want him to take him away from me. I'm not ready for him to go home._

There is only one place she wants him to be. _With me._

So as she walks to the door she tries ignoring the throbbing, disappointed ache threatening to tear at her rational mind. She forces herself to bring her heart beat down a few notches, and convinces her blood cells to stop running marathons through her vessels. She silences her body, which is screaming for her to go back into his arms and claim satisfaction for all its longings...

When she gets to the door, she has mustered the part of the good hostess to a passable level.

And when she curls her hand on the knob, she has all of her standard responses ready.

And when she opens her home to the outside world, she is prepared to take on every challenge.

But the sight in front of her, that...

... Well, that she isn't prepared for.

On the Gilmores' doorstep stands a girl who can't be older than ten. Long, raven hair tumbles down past her shoulders in luscious, untamed loose curls, creating a startling contrast with the pale, unblemished skin it collides with.The face it frames dons a slight bone structure, evident in the curves defining chin, cheekbones, nose, brow, and offers childishly pouty red lips,along with full, round cheeks. She's tiny, and Roy can't help likening her to one of the expensive porcelain dolls sitting next to the unicorns in the store: for she looks as fragile, as breakable as one of them.

But what startles Rory the most are her hazelnut eyes. Better yet, her gaze, as her chin tilts to take in her appearance. There is something unsettlingly out of place, yet so convincingly appropriate in it, that the older girl finds herself wanting to dip her fingers in, so as to feel its texture and try it on for size. It is curious, sparkling with wildly and childisly untamed things, such as happyness and bliss and curiousity. And there is something sharp in there, as ancient as the shards of glass and slivers of wood of untimely shattered innocence; something about those eyes goes out to Rory, tearing at and touching to a hidden part of her...

_She is studying me just as I've been studying her. _Rory muses, noticing changes in expressions and demeanors.

"Uhm... Hi?" she says to the little girl, interrupting the study session.

"Hi..." the little one hesitates. "Hi, I'm Rhiannon, and I wanted to wait, I really, really, really did, but that guy with the cardigan is creepy, and I'm from New York and I'm going to turn nine in four days and I..." she suddendly stops_ ... came looking for Jess_.

"Rory?" Jess walks up to them, shirt back in place and ready to make a run for it, should the need arise.

He isn't prepared for the next thirty seconds of his life.

Time stands still as he takes in the sight in front of him.

_Rhiannon. Pure Maiden._

_God, she's grown. _It's the only coherent, wistful thought he can muster after having looked the little one over for what seems an eternity.

_It's been a year since I left. It seems like forever._ It is then that it strikes him. _What is she doing here? This is Connecticut! _A thought the lump in his throat won't let him voice, as things long forgotten make their way to the forefront of his life.

Rory glances back and forth between the two, trying to interpret the hyeroglyphics that seem to code for Jess' emotion as they slither across his face, tumbling in his mouth and his eyes, translating into something she cannot quite place. Rhiannon's features offer no help, however, and she gives up.

Jess startles himself out his nostalgia when the little one breaks the staring contest and throws, launches, hurls herself at him, making him stumble backwards. His response is quick, as he wraps his arms around her in a tight hug.

"I missed you. Don't ever move to Connecticut again." She states with the kid logic adults can only smile at.

"Well, Pure Maiden, so have I." Jess Mariano speaks gently, his tone much like the one he uses where Rory is concerned._ But there is something else there. Why does he call her Pure Maiden?...Rhiannon... oh..._ Rory comes upon information she acquired some time earlier, while reading about England, Ireland, their histories and myths.

"Don't call me that!" the little one pouts against his shirt, not having relinquished her hold on the older boy.

"But it's your name." He teases. He pulls back to take a look at her, holding her at arm's lenght.

"What are you doing here?" His mind roam possibilities he wishes he shouldn't have to consider, worst possible scenarios that will torture his mind until reassurance should decide, if it so pleases her, to make an appearance.

"I..."

"She came with me." This voice brings Jess' head up sharply. He fixes his eyes on the person who spoke this last sentence, as if to reassure himself he has heard correctly. As it turns out, he has.

_So much for reassurance._ The worst case scenarios slide show takes a turn for the worse.

"Hey, Mariano, think you can muster up a complete sentence? Or some sort of greeting? Even an 'Hi, how are you?' could hack it. I'm not expecting a welcome speech... but..." The guy throws a worried glance around. "Can we come in? This town's creepy. Your uncle at the diner, 'cause that was your uncle, right? Flannel and baseball cap? Wanted to shoot daggers when I asked about you, and then this cardigan wearing guy asked me for my ID and whether I had a record... Going all bad-police-flick on me..." He pauses to take a breath."He asked Erika we were married. Married! And whether the Half Pint there was my daughter." _This place is weird. How Jess stands it here is beyond me_. "Stop standing there looking bewildered, Mariano!"

This throws Rory and Jess right out of their current states. Utterly disbelieving, his, and confused to the umpteenth power, hers.

"Huh, sure, come in." He looks at Rory "If we don't let them in, the gossip mill will swallow them whole."

"Ok" she can agree to that, and lets the raven haired eight year old, and the young couple step inside her home.

"Ok, first things first" says Jess. "Sit. Couch, chair, floor, wherever." They oblige. The two boys manage to finally look at each other, sharing a look pregnant of memories and affection, and mingled life histories.

"Hey D'Antona." _I've missed you._

"Hey Mariano" _I've missed you._

"Introductions" Both girls ask at the same time.

"He's Jason" Jess smirks over at the young man, who nods to Rory.

She takes in his appearance. Head almost completely shaved, a stub in his left ear. Brown eyes, wide and friendly, strong cheekbones, lips a thinly drawn line. He is taller than Jess, and his body speaks of tales untold. He looks like he could bend and twist effortlessly, were he asked to do so. She noticed the way he carries himself when he walked in the door, every step just a hint of something else, something thought out and worked on and practiced hard at for fear of imperfection, hidden in darkened rooms and shrouded with criticism, sweat, passion, determination. She tries remembering who else walks like that, who else has a body of tales untold and rock hard muscles... and she comes upon the face of a girl she interviewed a while back for the Franklin. That girl is a ballerina who juggles classic ballet and Chilton, and has been accepted to one of the most demanding dancing schools in the country.

_Jason is a dancer. _She concludes. But she still doesn't know who he is to Jess.

"I'm guessing you are Erika, right?" Jess turns his attention to the girl who's sitting on the couch, hands entwined with Jason's.

She smiles in response.

"And the Pure Maiden here is Rhiannon" He smiles fondly at the little one.

"Jess!" she pouts "I prefer Goddess of the Moon and Fertility." _I like being a Moon Goddess._

Jess exchanges a wild gaze with Jason, sharing a thought.

_Fertility? When did this happen?_

Her eyes travel from one face to the other. She questions them with their eyes

"What?" She cries finally "I looked it up!"

"Listen, Half Pint, do you even know what fertility is?" Jason asks amusedly.

"Well... it has something to do with plants growing." The rest of the room bursts out laughing.

"Good. Let's keep it that way until you hit... let's say... twenty? Thirty? Thirty's good" states Jess. _Oh God_._ I'm turning parental._

Rhiannon shrugs

"May I have some water?" She asks noone in particular, while getting up and looking around. Rory motions Jess to the kitchen with her.

Rhiannon stops at the doorway off of the kitchen, and peeks in. Her eyes land on the pile of books which lay by the bed, and turns to Rory who is standing besides her with a glass, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

"Can I?" O_h. Books..._

She gestures to Rory's room.

"Go ahead." Rory is rewarded by a cute smile, and the sight of a very curious eight year old scuttling into her room. She then remembers she knows absolutely nothing about either of these people.

"Ah-ehm!" she draws attention, confused and lost in a maze she doesn't remember stepping into. "Jess? Help?" she pleads with him.

"It's... long... drawn out... complicated..." _and painful Rory, like you wouldn't believe... and this, I fear you won't be able to take._

"You have a lot of books" states Rhiannon, coming out of Rory's room. "Can I borrow Emma? I was reading it at home, but I forgot it. Someone" she pouts over in Jase's general direction "had me rushing and I left on my nightstand." _And I was getting to the good part, too._

Rory and Jess look at each other, rolling their eyes and thinking, almost in stereo.

_Huh. She's eight year old me._

"Listen, Half Pint, can you read in there while we talk?" _I don't want her to listen to all of this._

"'K. Don't care about your stupid adult stuff anyways. Emma's better" Rhiannon goes back to Rory's room,after having flashed her a dazzling smile and whispered a thank you to Rory, and Jess follows to close the door behind her.

"Sorry about that" he half whispers "I don't want her to listen. Some things I wish even I didn't have to listen to."

Rory nods.

"Who is she, Jess? I mean, she's not your daughter, 'cause that would have made you what? Ten when you had her?"

"Nine" he intermises, but there's no stopping a Gilmore when she rambles._ And from the looks of it the ramble is full on._

"So, is she your sister? I've known you for two years, we've been dating for the best part of this one, and you don't bother to tell me you have a sis... "

_Huh._

Rory's run on sentence spillage is interrupted by Jess placing his lips gently on hers.

"If we go back there" he gestures to the living room "I'll enlighten you to the best of my watting capacity."

He kisses her again, as softly as before, and she nods.

"Deal?"

"Do your watting capacities include a night light?" she asks, pouting much like Rhiannon a few minutes ago.

He rolls his eyes and takes her back to their guests.

"We're back. The Half Pint is going through Rory's books at the moment."

"Sure you have enough to keep her entertained?" asks Jase.

"Trust me. Rory's book collection rivals mine."

Jason rolls his eyes.

"What?"

"Nothing. Only remembering a certain e-mail, when you told me to go read Pride and Prejudice" Jase shakes his head.

"From what I remember, I thought Romeo and Juliet would have been more appropriate" chimes in Erika.

"You read his e-mails?" Jess asks, disbelieving.

"He lets me." She shrugs."I read in between the lines better than he does. And with your writing, it's all you actually have to do." She turns her eyes on him.

Rory is mesmerized by Erika's voice. It's deep and sultry, it vibrates quietly with well concealed strenght, and has a slight accent that makes it even more beautiful, more mysterious. _This girl_, Rory thinks, _must draw attention like a magnet._ Rory also sees how she understates her obvious beauty, not out of self consciousness but, rather, because she doesn't feel the need to flaunt it. Her tall, lean body is covered with clothes not meant to be either clingy or baggy, but to fit so as to float a little as she moves, hinting at her shape and form rather than bluntly stating the obvious. Her blonde hair is piled on her head, spilling from the 'do in every which way, and from the messy cascade of tendrils, here and there, a few copperish locks peek out of, making silly play with light. Rory wonders where she already heard a voice as deeply turmoiling as Erika's, and her memories bring her back to when she had to conduct yet another interview. A boy who sang in the choice gospelchoir. His voice vibrated in just the same way.

_Erika must have a beautiful singing voice. _Rory thought.

"What are you guys doing here?" _You left. You swore never to come back. And I accepted it. Because some part of me wanted to leave too. But I couldn't._

"We're visiting you." Jase smirks.

"You're supposed to be all the way across the Atlantic Ocean" Jess reminds him.

"Did you forget my father still has half of his business over here?"

"But you haven't been back since..." _that night._

"Wasn't ready." _You weren't ready, Jordan wasn't ready. He still isn't._

Rory listens intently, almost forgetting to breathe in the process. Something within her is whispering to keep quiet and leave any questions for later use, when Jess will come to her and they'll be able to dissect it at leisure. She believes that, if she listens hard enough, she will have one of the keys she needs to decript him, yet another piece of the puzzle. . . From the looks of it, she might not be altogether mistaken.

"How is...?" _I hope he's fine. I hope he's living and fighting and dealing. _Jess's hand tightens its hold on Rory's, but she bears it without protesting. If some part of him is hurting, she feels some part of her should be hurting too.

_Who hurt you?_

"Better." States Erika after exchanging a look with Jase. A look that speaks volumes, dictionaries, entire collections of encyclopaedias, shelves, bookcases, bookstores. Which does not go by unnoticed.

"Jase" Jess' tone is low and dangerous.

"I e-mailed you whenJor pulled that stunt with the car, when he landed himself in the hospital" _The freaking idiot. _"After that, pulled his shit together. 'Any lower, and I'll be digging, probably my own grave' and all that fun stuff."

"Yeah, he landed Alex in there as well. I was going to kill him." Erika shakes her head, the hint of a smile pulling at her face "Then the genius told me that he had asked Jordan to go along with the insanity." The hint is now a full grin "But it was Mil who forbid me to cause him any more bodily harm. 'He's been hurting enough. It's like he's punishing himself for something. I just wish I knew...'"

"That was a year ago, when I was back in New York. I was going to make a swim for it." Jess muses."Mil?" he asks, rolling the syllable in his mouth like a marble."Girlfriend, right?"

"His girlfriend, yeah. My best friend. Camille" Erika bites her lip, doing mental calculations. "They were a mess the first year or so. After the accident, things started going better." She echoes her boyfriend "'Any lower, and I'll be digging, probably my own grave', and all that fun stuff. Only this time, times two. She was a mess as well."

Jess nods "She the one you wrote about?"

"I did. No details. I don't do girl talk" Jase spits disdainfully. Jess smirks. Erika rolls her eyes and glances at Rory, who rolls hers as well.

"Who's Alex?" Pipes up Rory, who still doesn't have a full grasp of the situation. But she senses it must have been something big, something so huge that had Jess hurtling full speed on the self-destruction bound path he is now uncapable of getting out of. Something his friends have been through as well, with similar aftermaths, and that it must have hurt this Jordanthey keep talking aboutthe most.

"Kyka's twin brother. He holds his own, but can't refrain from acting like a complete idiot."

Erika punches her boyfriend in the side.

"Only I can call my brother and idiot." She smiles when Jase tries to say something "Don't worry, Mil tells me all the time: 'Kycks, lighten up!'"

"Kycks?" asks Rory.

"Oh, that's me" Kycks bites her lip in thought."It's what everybody calls me. I used to be Rick, or Ery, then Jase started calling me Kyka. Mil heard it, and twisted it. She says that boyfriends' pet names belong to boyfriends only. She's nuts, completely out of control. I love her." A grin spreads over Kycks' features, lighting up her grey eyes, pulling her full pink lips into a wide quarter moon shape.

"She sounds like Lane." Muses Rory.

"Lane?"

"My best friend since kindergarten. She's crazy, full of quirks and theories on just about any known phenomenon happening on the planet. Very much loved. She ranks up there with my Mom, who's also my best friend..."

As if on cue, Lorelai enters trhough the back door and starts talking, all the while directing herself towards Rory's room.

"Rory? Offspring of mine? Are you still sharing a bed with the margin writing hooligan? We have to talk about that, not answering me is not going to be a deterrant! Rory, come on! I need you to cheer me up, things at the Inn are... ah... Rory? RORY! When did you turn eight?" Lorelai comes into the living room, a sleepy, disheveled Rhiannon following in her wake, still clutching the book she fell asleep reading.

"And that is my Mom." Rory shakes her head. Trying not too hard to laugh at her mother's antics "That's Rhiannon, Mom... she is..." she turns to the other three.

"She's Jordan's niece." Jess holds his arms out to her, and she climbs on him.

"Hello?" asks Lorelai, completely confused. _He's so cute with that little girl in his arms_. Rory looks at Jess.

"He's Jason, a friend of Jess', Erika, his girlfriend. We were..." _What? Talking? Rehashing? Takingstrolls down memory lane? Confusing the living heck outta me?_ Rory has already come to terms with the general fact that her knowledge of Jess is still very limited. Having the evidence heaped on her in this massive amount, however,doesn't make it enjoyable.

"We were going" Jess speaks up. "To the diner, where Luke is probably going to kill me for spending the night out, torture me for it having occured with Rory, and drone on for an hour because it's...1 PM and I haven't shown up yet. Oh joy." His voice monotone, covering a hint of fear that any of those things could actually take place.

He starts leading Erika and Jason towards the door.

"Jess?" Lorelai regains her voice.

Jess turns slowly around, while a sleepy Rhiannon is taken from his grasp and brought out to the front steps.

"I hurt her. I die. Your hands. Slow and painful death. Forgot something?" he adds, as an afterthought.

"To kiss her goodbye." snickers Lorelai. Rory blushes and rolls her eyes, picking herself up from the couch and walking outside to the porch.

She puts her hands on the sides of his face, and he tangles her curls on his fingers. Blue sapphire meets chocolate brown, and for a minute the world keeps on spinning, yes, but without the couple that just transferred to its own cocoon shrouded corner of the universe.

"Will you..." _try working things out with Luke?_

"Yes"

"And will I..." _be able to find you, should I come looking for you?_

"Yes."

"And we will..." _talk about all this later?_

"Yes. And will you..." _talk to your mother?_

"Yes"

"And you won't..." _change your mind about me?_

"I won't"

"And we'll..." _talk about it later, then?_

"We will."

They share a slow, drawn out kiss. It tastes like desire and pent up feelings, of unfinished business and of love just recently confessed.

Jase and Kyka smile broadly,him hoisting a sleepy Rhiannon on his hip, her arms haphazardly thrown around his neck, her head leaning on his shoulder, raven hair spilling everywhere. _She's getting heavier. She's growing up._

"What?" Jess tone is guarded.

Jase bursts out laughing, while Kyka puts a hand on his shoulder and looks at him in the eye.

"We'll be expecting your wedding invitations soon."

Jess glares at them both before heading towards the diner. For a moment, the idea of waiting for Rory at the altar doesn't seem so crazy. He shakes his head...

**A/N: Check the bio for more information. I assure you that the confusion in this chapter will be soon cleared up. I promise. If you like them, I'll tell you where they're coming from, what they do for a living, and why they're actually there. Trust me. I don't know what I'm doing, but trust me. M.**


	9. Lorelai & Lorelai

Disclaimer: I own nothing unless what's mine. Cute, uh?

Chapter 9: Lorelai & Lorelai.

"Sweets? Do you mind coming home from wherever you are? At least long enough to tell me what was going on here..." Lorelai Gilmore Sr. glances at her daughter, who's laying on her bed, boyfriend's forgotten jean jacket clutched tightly to her, eyes closed, dreams and curly locks spilled all over her pretty features, like an impressionist painting._ She looks beautiful, untroubled. She looks in love._ It's a thought any mother loves and hates to have. It means acknowledging that a child is now an adult. It will mean to stand aside and watch something pretty being shattered to pieces, or made tenfold more bautiful. Still. It is a painful thing to accept.

"Huh..."_ There's... Nothing going on... Is there?_ She blinks sitting up, trying to step out of her daze, and, upon deciding that it's too much effort, resorts to revel in her reverie for a while more, needing to hang on lingering feelings. Surroundings and concerned mother completely ignored.

"Don't do that! Don't turn into Jess!" _Monosyllabic, broody and smart assed. I couldn't take that._ Her mother climbs on the bed next to her and pries Jess' jacket out of Rory's grasp, who in turn slits her eyes open, peers over at the bed-hogging, jacket-stealing woman and makes an attempt at sarcasm.

"We finally decided that keeping two bodies was too expensive, so now we share mine. Wanna say hi to my mom, Jess?" _So there._

She yanks her the jacket out of her mother's arms and returns to clutching it.

"That was one disturbing mental image I could have gladly gone without" _No, really... _Lorelai frowns as to get the idea of a Jess-Rory chimera out of her mind. _That is one disgusting thought..._

"It's more fun that way, isn't it?" Rory smirks and rolls her eyes, giving her best Jess impersonation. _Serves you right from interrupting my daydreaming._

_Wow. She's gotJess down to a science. It's actually cute, in a very disturbing way..._

"Who was that?" _Let's tackle the less disturbing argument first. I don't know if I want to have a talk about the latest developements in sleeping arrangements. Besides, the boy's a cutie. _She is genuinely curious. It isn't an everyday occurrence to walk in on a sleeping eight year old bunking in her daughter's room. For a minute there, Lorelai had been thinking of cutting back on coffee intake, sure it was starting to cause allucinations. _Perish and banish the thought._

"That who?"_ Let me play oblivious. I didn't understand a single thing about Rhiannon, Jason, Erika, Camille or Jordan... _Rory is too tired, too overwhelmed by the recent developements, that she simply isn't able to deal with it all.

There's the emotional rollercoaster.

The physical rush.

The shocking surprise.

_I'll need to elaborate all that, sooner or later. Just not now..._

"The couple who looks too young to have a daughter that age." Her mother isn't, obviously, reading her mind. Or taking the hint. Or whichever would be more convenient.

"Oh, she's not their daughter. I don't think she's even related to them. He's a friend of Jess. You know, from before."_ From the life I know almost nothing about. The life he keeps hiding, and locking me out of._

"From NYC." _Oh, great. If he's anything like him, God help Star's Hollow. Who am I kidding? This, God can do nothing about..._

"Yeah. I heard them mention that they haven't seen each other in a long time, and something about them being supposed to be all the way across the Atlantic..."A moment, something akin to anger sparks up, leaving her with the deep desire to strike her boyfriend with something hurtful. _Jesus, Jess, why don't you talk to me already!_ Then she chastizes her own thoughts._ He opened up to me. Maybe he'll come around to share this, whatever this might be, with me... Soon. Hopefully._

"What?"_ What else is there to those three?_

"I don't really know... It's just... Nobody actually said anything, but they kept hinting that something big must have happened to them while they livedin NYC. Something that turned Jess into, you know... Well, Jess. I don't know anything, Mom... I'm waiting for him to come around." _And I hope it's gonna be soon. There is something about Jason and Rhiannon... Something that has Jess unsettled and rattled and shaken and confused. I have the feelinghe's this close to cracking. He will need me when that happens._

This worries Rory to no end.

"So you can have another sleepover?" _Kudos on introducing the disturbing argument, Lorelai. Give yourself a pat on the back and remind to ask Luke for tutoring on how to be subtle_. Lorelai mentally kycks herself.

**Flashback**

"What's wrong?" _I'm hugry Rory, so you either hurry, or I'll be chewing on your arm in about ten seconds._

"Nothing..." _Something! Everything! You'll freak! You'll lock me in my room until I'm thirty!_ Rory's thoughts go wild. "Uhm listen..." _Ok, here goes nothing. Come on Gilmore, deep breaths and take the goddamn plunge. You can do it. She's your mother. Your best friend... The one who doesn't even want to say Rory and sex in the same sentence_.

"I'm listening." _She fidgets. It must be something big. She never fidgets like that unless she's extremely nervous, or uncomfortable..._

"When I said before that I was too busy to think about it... I realize now that I'm not too busy to think about it" She said it. It feels oddly liberating.

"Think about it" _Should I worry? It... mmh... which it.._.

Lorelai's food deprivation is catching up to her. She can't, for the life of her, begin to understand what her daugther is talking about

"About... it" _Mom! Focus! Emphasis on the 'it'. Don't make me have this conversation for longer than needed... I'll die from embarassment..._

"Oh... it" _Emphasis on the it. Oh... God... Definitely didn't see that one coming, Lor, praise yourself on the mothering skills, really._

"Yeah... it"_ What now?_

"Ah... it" _What now?_

"Nothing's happened yet, but it might... maybe" Rory releases the breath she's been witholding, her lungs screaming for air.

"Maybe" _My baby's growing up..._

"Maybe... with Jess" _'Cause he just kissed me, and told me to go somewhere, and I wanted to go with him so badly... _She had. She had been feeling something tying up in knots when he had trapped her in his embrace, something that held her captive and hadbraked her there for the time being.

"With Jess" J_ess. Of all people. Why him? Why not wait a little more? Till, let's say... You're thirty and married?_

**End of Flashback**

"So this is what we're talking about." _Great. Just great. Maybe now she'll have the freak out she didn't have last night..._

Silence settles on the pair like snoflakes settling.

"So".. _about last night_.

The atmosphere becomes awkard.

"So".. _about last night_.

"Are we stalling?" _Come on, babe, talk to Mommy. I need to know what's going on so I can help you with it._

"So it seems" _I'm scared you'll bend this out of shape, turn it into something ugly. And it's so important, so beautiful I don't want you to._

"You and Jess..." _looked at peace last night._

"We talked. We read. We slept." _He talked to me about school._

"Somehow I don't see Jess having a heart to heart over nail polish and latest hair styles." This elicits giggles from both women.

"There's a lot you don't see and don't know about Jess" _He talked about his father. I told him about mine._

"After what you told me about the party, I thought you'd..." _break up with him. Hurt him really badly. Or something._

"There was stuff going on, and Jess was... all messed up about it. Avoiding each other wasn't going to work... so I went to the diner but chickened out. And he came running after me. Running ! After me!" When thinking about it,it does seem a gesture asremoved from Jessas possible. Yet, again... _He apologized for the past few weeks._

"He did? Doesn't seem like Jess."_ Hm..._

"He loves me! He could have let me go away, but he stopped me!" _He told me he loved me. I told him I loved him._

"Yes... wait! What did you say?" Lorelai turns to face her daughter, searching for her eyes and meeting them.

"He could have let me go away?" Rory asked.

"No. The other thing."_ Tell me, Rory._

"He stopped me?"_Geez, it spilled right out of my mouth. So much for keeping it simple._

"Rory!"

"He told me he loves me. Actually, I said it first" _There. Happy? Plese don't ruin it._

"Mmh." _Well, that one was a long time coming._

"Don't make it into something it isn't" She pleads. _It's something I'm afraid will break if I'm not careful with it._

"It was about time" _Only, this is Jess we're talking about_. Lorelai can't believe she just uttered those words. But as her eyes study her daughter's face, she almost falls over laughing. Rory's facial expression is absolutely priceless.

"What?" _No, I mean... What?_

"It was about time. You were the only one that didn't see it coming." _Only, we're talking about the broody, sulky, monosyllabic town juvenile delinquent, and my daughter, the love-impaired. I thought they'd never get around to say anything of the sort_. "Nothing happened?"

"Nothing happened. Yet." _But I want it to happen. I want to know what it feels to be so close to the man you love you can't get any closer. Feel what I felt last night and this morning._ Her thoughts unsettle her. What she is feeling, what she is wanting deeply unsettles her.

"No blistering hot lovemaking?" Lorelai can't help joking about this, her question halfway serious.

"Nope..." Rory rolls her eyes.

"But?"

"But? Is there a but?"

"I was totally sensing a but in your answer."

"Nope, it was completely but-less, I can assure you."

"Hey! I've given birth to you. I raised you. I've been living with you for the past 18 years. I know when there's an unspoken but at the end of your sentences. Now, tell!"

"We... cuddled. There were cuddles and cuddling involved" _Huh._

"You ... cuddled. Cuddling as in hugs and pats on the head, or cuddling as in foreplay-sh, sex-inducing cuddling?" _Oh God, controlling of the freak out getting harder now..._

"It was more of the latter. But..."_ I don't regret it. _Rory blushes while rememberingand Lorelai just looks at her, willing her to continue

"Jess... he... didn't push me. I wanted. I wanted him. I wanted him to..."_ Touch me..._ She blushes, remembering "And he stopped when he saw I couldn't go any further, before I even had to tell him." _And it was... perfect._

"Quite the gentleman" Lorelai can't help the sarcasm, as she wraps her mind around what her daughter is telling her."Can't you be six again? Just for a while? So you'll think that boys have cooties?"

"Mom!"_ A little too late for that, aren't we?_

"Sorry Sweets, I'm trying not to overreact here."_ And not being very successful, either _"Do you want to go on the pill?" _My baby. My little woman_

Lorelai remembers when the very thought of putting Rory on birth control, or talking about the even remote possibility of her having sex seemed preposterous. She wants those days back... _Or do I? _But she can't help feeling relieved, for her daughter is letting her help through this; and happy, because their bond is as strong as ever, even if Rory's changing right in front of her._ Day after day. But she'll never be like I was before she was born. And that is something I can be very damn proud of._

"It would be... helpful..."

"Ok."

"Ok."

"Mom? Thank you." _For being the way you are, for not freaking out too much, for giving Jess and me a chance._

"Don't mention it. "

Mother and daughter lay there for a while, looking at the ceiling and holding each other. And right then, there is only the two of them. No boy trouble, no school, no work, no money... nothing of the sorts. It's just as it has always been: fast paced conversation, same blue eyes, unconventional relationship and strong, unseverable ties. It is them, Lorelai & Lorelai... Best friends first, mother and daughter second.

"So he loves you?" Lorelai's voice is playful.

"He said so..."_Jess Mariano loves Rory Gilmore._

_The world is ufficially home to the little green aliens coming from Mars_.

Rory smiles. Right now, at that precise moment, it's just... Ok.

**A/N: You know the drill. Life changing info in the bio, etc etc.Next chapter deals with Jess and Luke. More to come, more to come, stay tuned and trust me. Still not knowing what I'm doing, but trust me. M.**


	10. Are We Talking In The Streets of Philade...

Disclaimer:I own nothing unless it was mine to begin with. Aren't I clever?

Chapter 10: Are We Talking in the Streets of Philadelphia?

"Why is she this zonked out?" Jess Mariano steals a look at the slumbering pre-teen cradled in Jason's arms while traveling towards Luke's diner.

"Jet lag can do that to you" Kyka replies, suppressing a yawn. "I'd sleep too, if I had someone to carry me." She stretches her arms over her head, tilting her neck to look at the sky, her skin catching the last droplets of rain hanging in the air surrounding them, her eyes taking on the shimmery feeling brought on by stormy days and too many clouds overhead.

"Huh" Jess does a double take. "What? Wait... What? When did you guys get here?" _What is Jason pulling? _He turns to walk backwards, stare fixed on Jason , questioning, demanding and expectingan explanation.

"Our plane landed at JFK at 10 AM."Jason shifts Rhiannon from her perch on his left hip to the front of his body, so her weight is now spreading evenly between his arms and his torso. He sighs and waits for what is to come. As long as Jess isn't retreating intoa shell,the older boythinks that any reaction would be good, not taking into consideration the fact that he could possibly get more than he needs to bargain for.

"What the fuck?" the words are out ofJess' mouth before he can check them, his mind out of practice on the no-swearing-in-front-of-Rhiannon policy that had been common practice until a few years back._ When our problems revolved around combining baby-sitting and partying without getting her killed. Before we didn't have to deal with fixing unrepairable broken things, and search for unretrievable lost objects..._

"Shhh... child on the premises" Kyka mock glares at him. The Half-Pint is out like a light. The look in Jess' eyes is one she has seen often enough to know its meanings and implications. She has even witnessed it taking over her own irises, like a demon possessing the unprepared soul it wants to torture.

"What in the hell are you doing here?" Jess tone is low and dangerous. It speaks of years of untold hurt,of repressed sensations, of walls and weapons. "Seriously. You leave. I undestand that." _It hurt, but you were justified in your actions. Whomever could, took flight. I did too, in a different way._

"You don't come back for three years. I can understand that too." _I got myself sent here. When I went back, I basically hopped onthe first bus back.'Cause here, it's escape, and here, there is Rory, and Luke, and second chances I managed to blow. There? Nothing left._

"I only hear from you through your e-mails,"_And it took you months to write the first one._ "And from Jor I don't even get that. That's harder to understand, but I do anyways." _'Cause I used to know him so well I could almost predict what his reactions were going to be. I expected him to be like that._

"Only one I've seen recently is the kid, and that's only because she isn't old enough to tell the other side of the family she never wants to see this country again..." _Because none of you want to step foot in NYC. Hell, I don't want to step foot in NYC as long as I live_... A_nd then you show up here like this? You barely step off your plane and you come to Hicksville CT?_

Jess stops in the middle of the street, ignoring the weird stares he's receiving from the townies.In about ten minutes, the gossip chain will have worked its sick, nosy magic, and everybody will havea different story for Jess's tirade and the three strangers whose company he's keeping. Jason stops as well, and looks straight at him over the top of Rhiannon's head. She shifts a little in her sleep, sensing motion slowing to a full stop, but still does not wake.

"Listen. You give me a place, any place I can lay this kid down to sleep, and I'll tell you whatever it is that will ease your delusional mind. Deal?" Jason throws this bait for Jess to chew on. He waits patiently as his old friend reasons it out with himself. _I knew this was gonna happen. Thing is, I hoped it could have waited for a while. _In his mind, last night isn't accounted for, hence he doesn't know that Jess' defenses aren't as strong as they could be.

"Deal." Jess accepts reluctantly."We're going back to my uncle's. And... hand her over." _I want to hold her._ He needs to familiarize anew with the feel of her in his arms, the solid weight of her small body resting totally on him. It feels like all the responsibilities he let himself give up on, during a rainy afternoon, after having said seven goodbyes too many. Two of which he could never take back. _Not fair. It wasn't fair then, and it's not fair now..._

Kyka takes Jason's hand in hers and gives it a light squeeze. He meets her eyes and smiles a troubled smile. She let their gazes meld for a while, before going back to look at the street in front of them.

_Don't let go. _

_I'm right here._

Luke's head shoots up as the ringing bell above the door interrupts his work; he sees his nephew, proceeds to motion a nod in his general direction... and does a double take. Jess is standing there with a sleeping child in his arms, and a smile hovering on his lips, dark circles lining his eyes. Behind him, the couple that asked about his nephew earlier stands holding hands, smiling at him in recognition, eyes tired and worn-out air. Jess directs himself to the appartment, motioning for the newcomers to follow him to up the stairs. Luke watches them go, shakes his head, and proceeds to go on up as well.

"Caesar? Cover for me!" He bellows._ What the hell is going on here?_

Jess lays Rhiannon on his bed, drawing a blanket over her. He brushes a tendril from her face, then turns around and exits the darkned room. He's in the process of quietly shutting his bedroom door behind him when Luke comes through the door, his face a study in confusion.

"Jess? Explain."_ And I'm not in the mood for monosyllabic, smartass you. _

"Huh" Jess rolls his eyes. _Here we go._

"That's Jason, a friend from NYC and that's Erika, his girlfriend."_ Let's start with simple. Introductions are simple._

"Nice to meet you." They shake hands, Jess could laugh.

"And the kid? She isn't... yours... right?" _Please tell me we don't have to deal with that kind of problem right now._

"She's nine, Luke, there is no way in the hell that she could be mine!"_ Jesus, Luke. I'm not that screwed up._ His voice sounds angered, frustrated, and shocked, just to list a few of its undertones. Luke nods.

"Ok..." He then turns suspiciously to the young couple sitting on his couch. "She's yours, then?" _And if she is, what are you doing here? Planning to leave her and disappear? With Jess, of all people?_

"We're twenty-one" replies a bewildered Kyka, subbing in for a speechless Jason "She's definately not ours." If Luke didn't look serious, Jess thinks his friend and his girlfriend could fall over laughing. _Hell, I could laugh too... this situation is insane, for lack of a better term._ Then, deciding this third degree has gone long enough, Jess decides to take the proverbial bull by the horns.

"She's... she's Jordan's niece" says Jess, shrugging his uncle's questions off and turning his attention to the couple. _Time for a subect change. _"You guys want something to drink?"

Luke looks from one to other.

"Water" Kyka plays oblivious to Luke's questioning glare

"Wait, I still have..." Luke starts.

"A coke" Jason ignores his half sentence.

"I need to know..." Luke commences.

"All right" Jess pretends not to hear anything.

"Jesus Christ, stop that!" The trio just looks at him.

"Not now Luke!" Jess' tone is harsher than intended. Morpheus' antics from the previous night, coupled with the emotional rollercoaster he's been riding since talking to Rory on the bridge are taking their toll on him. _Just leave me alone. Can't you do that?_

Luke just looks at him, and Jess shakes his head in defeat._ Obviously, not._

"Fine." He turns to the couple, handing them a bottle of water and a soda can. "Can you guys..." he gestures towards the door.

"Sure. We'll keep ourselves amused... Rhiannon has our phone numbers, she'll give them to you when she wakes up. Call if you need us." Jason helps Kyka off the couch, linking fingers with her.

"Ok" Jess exchanges a brief, loaded glance with his old friend._ You and I will talk later. _

The couple leaves, hand in hand, ready to venture into Star's Hollow. God help all parties involved.

"Who are those people?" asks Luke.

"I told you, a friend and his girlfriend."_Let's conveniently forget that I haven't seen him for three years._

"What are they doing here? How long are they staying? What are they doing with a kid that isn't even theirs?"_ What if they're in some sort of trouble? What if they're involved with something illegal? What if Jess is involved, or they manage to get him involved, and..._

"Rhiannon is a friend's niece, and she'll be visiting family soon." _Since that's what happens every summer, I'm betting it won't be different this time around._"They're here, presumably, on vacation and came to see me, 'cause, you know, that's what friends who haven't met in a while do. I don't know how long they're staying. And I don't care." _No, I do care. I want to know how long they're staying, what's going on with them... I shouldn't care, but I do._ Jess crosses his arms, sits on the couch, pulls book out of back pocket.

Luke shakes his head._ That's Jess code for 'subject closed'_

"What happened with Rory?" _How do you like this one?_

Jess sighs.

**Flashback**

"What was going on up here?" _This could turn out to be a disaster. Why did I think it would be a good idea for Rory to date my nephew?_

"Nothing." _You interrupted us_. Jess can't remember being more frustrated or angry in his existence. _I was about to kiss Rory. Rory fucking Gilmore, Luke..._

"Nothing? I walk in here and the two of you are like shrapnel." _Shrapnel? Where do I come up with this imagery? That's it. I'm not even going to serve coffee anymore. The fumes are getting to my brain._

"Your timing is perfect, by the way. Next time I'll hang a sock on the door." _I might just do that. I have the feeling Rory and I won't have a lot of privacy from now on..._ _Rory and I. Together. That sounds..._ His mind is having trouble wrapping itself around said subject.

"Hey, there will be no hanging of socks on the door in my house, do you hear me?" _Socks? He wants to hang socks on the door? They won't even have a door. I'm taking it out this evening._

"Relax, I was kidding." _Or not... Rory and I. Me and Rory. We are together. There is a we... with her... _His mind is working at full speed, trying to understand that this time, with Rory, is for real. Not a dream.

"Oh, really? Hanging socks on doors – that's your idea of funny."_ Because I happen to think it rather disturbing. Oh God. Him and Rory up here doing who knows what... Oh shit. That's one mental image I really do not need._

"Depending on the sock design, could be hilarious."_ You barge in here, you ruin our perfect moment... and you keep on harping on this. God. Leave it be. Leave me alone. I want to bask in the freaking afterglow of what could have happened hadn't it been for you._

"Okay, that's it, sit down." _You want difficult? I'll make it difficult. You just watch me, Jess Mariano._

"Why?" _I am not going to have a conversation on sex with you. I don't want to talk about sex with you. I don't want to discuss Rory with you, all of things._

"It's time to lay down a few ground rules, sit. All right, first off, when she is up here, that door stays open." _There. Let's see you try something._

"Excuse me?" _Oh God. This is worse than what I thought. We're past the point of dementia, here._

**End of Flashback**

"Sex. Tons of sex. Cargo boats full of sex. Half the city was up half the night 'cause of the freaking loud noises we wereproducing while making love in her room. With her mother upstairs" Sarcasm subtly lines that stament. Luke seems ready to throttle his nephew, then resorts to growling in his general direction.

"Just... watch it, Jess. Don't pull anything stupid. Not with her." _She isn't meant to be hurt_.

"I won't..." Jess replies softly. Then, without thinking,casts his book aside, drops his face in his hands, and mumbles something.

"Ok. What? Wait... What?" _Did you just... My nephew? Saying something like that? I must be allucinating. I'm hearing things. That's it. No more coffee serving._

"I love her" says Jess a little more coherently.

"She knows?"

Jess just nods.

_Huh. Did I just tell Luke... oh God... too much excitement... Not good... not good at all..._

Luke is about to walk out the door, then remembers something and turns around.

"You need to decide..." _On school and the future_.

"I know. I just..." _Need time to think about it._

"Ok. Just... tell me when..." _You make up your mind about it. _"Your shift starts in an hour."

Jess nods, and gets up to check on Rhiannon. His eyes wander over to her sleeping form, curled up on one side. He makes his way towards the bed and sits gently, trying not to wake her. He runs his hand tenderly through her messy raven curls, and strokes his index finger on her cheek, his thumb on her chin. A soft expression comes to play over his features, while memories chase in his mind's eye: taking turns with Jason and Jordan to check on her, making sure she was asleep, using candy to explain homework, cooking dinner and reading to her. He feels a dull ache in his chest, a longing for what was there before pain and hurt and sadness.

_Can do nothing about it. _His cynism sounds hollow and tastes bitter. He gets up, leaving Rhiannon to her dreams and him to sort his thoughts out. He selects a book from his library, sticks it in his back pocket, and scribbles a note to leave on the nightstand , forthelittle one to find when she wakes up.

"Hey Pure Maidena

Don't be scared. You are in my room, in my apartment in Star's Hollow. You'll find me downstairs, just take a left out the door and you'll be fine.

Jess."

He makes his way downstairs, and starts his shift an hour early, knowing it will distract him from the thoughts troubling his mind.

**In the Meantime...**

Deciding she needs to take a break from the confusion Jess managed to bestow upon her, Rory walks towards the bridge with The Sun Also Rises, complete with Jess' infamous marginalia, in tow. She might as well give it another try, seeing Chilton has its seniors only studying for finals, and she, being Rory Gilmore, is way ahead of her game. She travels the familiar path through the trees, but finds herself stopping short the moment voices and laughter fill her ears. Ignoring vulgar wisdom, which deems curiosity guilty of pet slaughtering, and good upbringing, which imperiously forbids proper young ladies from eavesdropping, she hides by the nearest willow, following the play unfolding in front of her eyes.

Suspended over water, taking up her usual spot, stands a man and sits a woman. The latter is holding a guitar in her arms, propped up on her crossed legs, which dangle over wood, towards the river. The former is standing, moving, hinting at dance steps while his voice twines and tangles with his companion's. Rory can hear their conversation.

"I haven't heard from anybody yet..."

"It's" he pretends to think very hard about this "because they don't have our cell phone numbers yet..."

The girl laughs, the wind messing her blonde hair.

"Will you be checking e-mails later, or do I have to?"

"I'll do it, so we can decide when to schedule voice chats and stuff with everyone. Man, is this going to be complicated." He shakes his head while saying so.

"Beats paying the phone bill. So we're set." The girl pauses, and looks over the water, then back up at her boyfriend, meeting his eyes. "I like it here. It's peaceful."

"I like it too." Jason bends to give Kyka a light kiss on the lips. "But Jess is right. If you're not used to it, it can grate on your nerves."

"I'm glad we came. Milan was starting to grate on mine."

Kyka begins to strum scales on her guitar while keeping her eyes trained on Jason, and he rolls his eyes.

"Save those for when Rhiannon needs to do music theory."

"Will do." She quits torturing the strings and fills the ensuing silence with a question. "So that was Jess?" She weaves words with notes, and a nod of her man's head adds to this tangle.

"Yes, the infamous Mariano at his spiteful best." Jason shakes his head. "He used to be..." _different_.

"He's not that spiteful... he's..." She makes a gesture with her right hand. _Protecting himself._

"Oh, that's insightful, Amore" They both like it when he uses that particular term of endearment with her.

"Shut up! I'm trying to think... Here, this is what he makes me think about." She curls her fingers on her guitar and strums a few notes of Streets of Philadelphia, by Bruce Springsteen.

"I thought I reminded you of that." He wonders where, along the years, that has changed.

"That was when we started consorting. You were out of this world." _When you were hurting too much to even dance._

He raises his eyebrows.

"Was I so bad? And did you just use the word consort?"

"Horrible. And yes." Her fingers curl differently around her guitar, and she rests her eyes on his again.

"Do you want to go back to NYC?" _Do you want to deal with that emotional overload?_

"Honestly?" this word comes after a long silence. "No." _At least not yet._

Kyka nods.

"I thought so." _I can read you like a music sheet. And I know this morning you would gladly have taken the next plane out of there._

"We need to..." _talk about what we're going to do next._

"Dont' worry about it" _There is time. We have all day. When you're ready, I'll be here. And whatever you decide, I'm standing right behind you.._

Her fingers start torturing the strings, drawing a song Rory can recognize from somewhere, but can't quite place.

"I like that song" he muses, his reaction a given. He waits for her next action.

"I wonder why". Kyka casts her guitar aside and lets him help her up. They share a kiss, and Kyka presses her body close to his while one of his arms encircle her at the waist, the other rising to tangle a hand through her hair.

"Three years? You and me, three years?"

"In october. Yes."

"Can't believe it."

"Me neither"

She parts from him with one last lingering kiss.

"Will you go and check on Rhiannon?" she asks of him, seemingly out of nowhere.

"Why?"

"Cause I wanna talk to the girl hiding behind the tree over there. "She whispers to him, playfully."Don't let on we know she's here."

"Ok." He winks at herand goes off towards the diner.

Kyka resumes her previous position, sitting with her guitar in her arms.

"Rory?" she calls "You can come out now."

Rory walks out looking sheepish, confusion and curiosity written clearly across her face. By the time she reaches Kyka on the bridge, her cheeks don a graceful blush.

"How do you do that?"_ I thought you didn't see me._

"Long story. What were you doing here?" Her tone isn't harsh, or put off, or anything of the sorts, just curiously interested.

"I needed to clear my head. So I brought company" she hands Kyka the volume, who looks at it, and on impulse tumbs through the pages.

"We have a few books like that too..." she muses. Rory hands her the most confused expression she manages to concoct, before taking the book back.

"What do you mean?"

"Some books of Jase' and Jord's are completely covered in notes." She replies. Then, as if on a whim. "Rhiannon's birthday is in four days from now. I can't believe I met her when she was six, and I was eighteen."

"You're twenty-one? And Jason?" _I thought they were our age... but then, they do seem older_

"My age. He's actually ten months older than I am. I was born in October and he was born in January." Kyka looks over at the younger girl. She looks like Camille did when she first met her: pure, innocent, untainted. She likes to see innocence once in a while, probably because she herself stopped bearing its burden early on in life. She doesn't regret it. Just, sometimes, she wishes it had happened differently.

"Milan?" Rory can't help herself, the curiosity starting to get to her.

"Were you eavesdropping?" Grey eyes dance with a teasing twinkle.

"I was dropping no eaves... I overheard..." she answers sheepishly.

"Milan, Italy. Don't ask how Jess knows someone from Italy, 'cause that's not my secret to tell" She waits for Rory to nod in agreement. "My turn. Your mother looks like she could be your older sister..." _And there must be an interesting story behind that. There is more to this girl than her innocence..._

"She was sixteen when she had me... I'm named after her, by the way, Lorelai. She was zonked out on delivery room drugs, and felt she had to make a feminist statement."

Kyka raises her eyebrows before the two of them share a laugh.

"Go on, your question" Kyka tosses the ball on the other half of the court.

"Mmh.." Rory muses "How did you and Jason meet?"

"It's a long story..." The older girls' voice trails off, as she captures memories and holds them up to the light for inspection.

"Anything to avoid reading Hemingway. I don't care if Jess believes 'Ernest only has lovely things to say about' me. I can't stand him!"

"Your boyfriend said something like that to you?" Kyka resumes strumming the Streets of Philadelphia.

"Oh, that was before we were together... he bought a pic-nic basket and then he took me out for pizza. And managed to steal my bracelet in the meantime" She laughs at Kyka's questioning raised eyebrow."Long story"

"I'll trade you. Mine for yours."

"We could do that..."

**A/N: And I'm goin' to leave you hanging. Tell your friends! Rest of the life changing information on the bio. Kisses.:) M.**


	11. Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman

Disclaimer: I own nothing besides what is mine to begin with. I'm cute, aren't I?

For the sake of everybody's sanity, please don't question my motives. I probably have none...

Chapter 11: Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman.

Jason steps into the diner, and immediately feels questioning gazes pinpricking at his skin in various points. He rolls his eyes, having withstood them a few hours before as well, and sidles up to take a stool at the counter, eyeing his lifelong friend as he gives the cook an order and then moves to handle a coffee pot and a couple of large coffee mugs. Jess is so busy he does not notice him, thus has no power to warn him about the cardigan clad fury that tears through the diner.

"Luke?" Taylor all but bellows.

"Taylor. No" Luke hardly looks up from where he's ringing up Ms. Patty at the counter. "And this is your change Patty, see ya soon!"

"Bye Luke, honey" Ms.Patty does a double take to ogle Jason's body, who frowns and squirms a little on his stool.

Jess shifts his gaze to the area in front of the counter, smirks, shakes his head, and comes to the rescue.

"Ms. Patty? Look, Andrew is talking to a woman that is definitely not his wife..."

"What? Oh... that poor girl... she'll be so crushed... I didn't think Andrew had it in him... I'll go and..." she leaves, not completing her statement.

"Oh man..."_ That woman is disturbing. This entire town is disturbing._

"Don't worry, my friend, you just need to keep a safe distance." Their attention is drawn back to the dayly Taylor-Luke squabble.

"No what?" Taylor goes back to harassing Luke.

"Whatever insane thought that is circling in your head, I don't want to hear it. So I guess I'll save time and say no from the beginning." _I don't need this, today of all days I don't need this. _

"Now, Luke, your attitude is seriously off-putting. It is appalling how you seem to not care about the corruption that is threatening to take over our town."

"What on Earth are you talking about, Taylor?" _What? Is he going to ban squirt guns?_

"This morning three strangers entered Star's Hollow. They refused to give me any information regarding their identity or their past histories"

"Oh! They refused to spill their guts about their lives to a complete stranger? I'm appalled!" _That's it! I'm moving tomorrow! Jesus!_

"Your sarcasm is not appreciated. They were spotted while coming out of the Gilmore's house"

"Once again, I'm appalled." Luke deadpans. _If he has a petition to sign to have them banished from the town, I'll go and throw bricks through his window panes for the rest of our lives._

"And they were seen while consorting with your nephew..."

"What is it with that word today?" Jason can't help but mutter under his breath as he listens, completely confused, to Taylor's tirade.

"So what? He knows them. They're his friends. The whole friendship concept implies speaking to each other, or it doesn't work." _Oh God._

"It is a known fact that your nephew is trouble..."

"Ouch Taylor. That hurts!" interrupts Jess in a fake whining tone, a hand to his heart, a quivering lip on his face that suggests crying. Jason's expression becomes even more bewildered.

"And it is known that whomever associates with your nephew is trouble."

"Hey, I'm standing right here!" Jason's temper is about to flare, but Jess catches his eyes, shakes his head, and then shifts his gaze to Luke.

_Don't worry, he'll handle it._

"Now, it is already bad enough that Rory is letting Jess influence her, but I request that, in order to prevent the corruption from spreading...".

"Jess?"

"Yes Luke?"

"Hold the door open." He says curtly

"Sure, Luke" knowing exactly what his uncle wants to do, Jess complies more than willingly. Luke manhandles Taylor and successfully pushes him across the diner, out the door, into the street, all the while ignoring the older man's protests.

"Luke, what are you doing?"

"I'm kicking you out of my diner, Taylor."

"You can't..."

"See me? This is me doing it. Out" Jess lets the door close, and Luke leans against it. Their eyes meet, and Jess starts to say something.

"Don't mention it. And go refill."

Jess comes back around the counter and his eyes meet Jason's.

"This town needs a completely new word to describe just how fucking weird it is..."

"Don't I know... Blonder, more feminine, and more attractive half of you?"

"I left her on a bridge not far from here. She sent me over so she could talk to the blue-eyed, sweeter, less smart-assed half of you."

"She's talking to Rory?"

"I'm guessing she is, since when I last saw them, one of them was playing guitar and the other one was hiding behind trees... The Half-Pint?"

"Upstairs, sleeping. I left her a note, so she won't freak when she comes out of her coma."

"Good. I'll..."

"Sure, go on. I'll be up when I hit my break."

Rhiannon is still out like fire someone threw water on. Jason smiles, as he watches her sleep, thankful for the peaceful expression hovering on her features, for the way her eyelids rest upon her eyes, her lips close softly over her teeth, and her arms rest under the pillow. He knows that, in a few days' time, she won't be sleeping restfully. She will scrunch her eyebrows, forcefully close her eyes, clamp her mouth shut, curl into a taut, violently shaking, sweating ball. Her sleep will be fitful and she will wake up panting, panicking, screaming.

_It used to happen every night._

**Flashback**

The incessant ringing of his doorbell sounds ominous in the D'Antona household. He meets with his father at the front door, knowing exactly who will be standing on its other side. Opening to let the late night visitor in, Jason feels, like every night thrilling notes jolt the apartment's inhabitants out of sleep, something ugly pull at his heart, something that ferociously needs to tear it to shreds.

It is whom they were expecting.

Jordan Vianti's broad shouldered frame looms in front of them, clad in the t-shirt and the sweats he uses to sleep. Dark circles lining his eyes, tightly curled black hair sticking every which way, shoulders slumped, face defeated.

"Again?" Jason's question is met by a stare and a nod.

Kyka joins them in front of the door, carrying her everpresent guitar.

"Rhiannon?"

"Yes"

The four of them cross the hallway to the Viantis apartment.

Rhiannon is curled up in her bed, under the comforter, crying desperately. Camille lays on top of the covers, legs bent at the knees, long mahogany hair pulled in a high ponytail, one hand stroking up and down the shaking form huddling beneath it, while Jordan's father sits on the floor, his arm against the kid's body, letting her feel his presence. They both look tired, worried, and saddened by what they are seeing. It is obvious that none present is new to this. It is about as obvious that Rhiannon in this state is hardly something easy to witness.

"Rhiannon?" Mil coaxes. "Rhiannon, come on, look who's here. We're all here."

"We're right here, Half-Pint, we're not going anywhere." Jason whispers in the same tone as his friend.

It is after many statements of the sort, a lot of cuddling and coaxing that Rhiannon gradually uncurls from her fetal position, relaxes her taut muscles, and finally stops her crying. But she still doesn't sleep, and it is Kyka's turn to sing her something soothing to get her to slumber. Tonight she chooses Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman. It's slow, repetitive, and she knows well enough that lullabies don't cut it with this kid. She exits the room last, with Jordan at her side.

"Bryan Adams?"

"Whatever works. If I have to play Marylin Manson, I will." She smirks at him.

"Why do I think that it will be hard with the acoustic guitar?" He returns the smirk.

"Because it would be." They are in the living room by now, four pairs of eyes on them. "Mission accomplished." She informs them wearily.

"How many times tonight?"asks Jason

"This is the third. She couldn't stop crying." Camille shakes her head, rubbing her temples, then her eyes, and finally holding out her arms to Jordan, who settles next to her.

"Yeah. I told you that spending the night here wouldn't do wonders for your beauty sleep." He lets his chin rest on her hair as she molds her chest to his.

"I don't need beauty sleep." _I need to be here with you. You hurt as much as she does._

"What was it tonight?" Kyka leaves her guitar on the coffee table to wrap her arms around Jase from behind, her eyes looking at Jordan from behind her boyfriend' shoulder.

"Same as every night. She's afraid that, if she goes to sleep, she'll wake up in a world where she doesn't know anybody... She was getting better..." Jordan's tone expresses defeat, pain, sadness. They all know that he sports the same injuries as the little girl resting a door over, and he needs to be strong for her on top of it all.

"She is getting better. She used to be up all night long and watch one of us sleep. Or she'd wake up something like ten times during the night, every night... Right now, we're down to a couple of nights a week, with an average of three dreams per night. I kinda like to think that progress." Jason says, remembering the first year of their stay in Italy.

Kyka nods.

"I'm going back to sleep. Work tomorrow. Goodnight guys, thanks for being here." Jordan's father heads for his room.

"I'll be going too. Jase?"

"Go ahead, Dad. Lock up, we have the keys."

"Ok. Goodnight everyone" He goes back to the apartment across the hall.

"Do you have lesson tomorrow?" Jord asks his girlfriend. She shakes her head.

"Nope. It's friday... You have only the 2 PM, right?" Mil watches as nods in response, then proceeds to look over at the couple standing in front of them.

"What's tomorrow for you?"

"Beginning of marking period showcase rehearsal. Meaning that we have no classes until four, and then we start working our asses off until, at the very least, ten PM for the next two weeks." Jase is too tired to express whether happyness or dread at the prospect.

"Does anybody here feel like sleeping?" Jor queries. When they all look at him, with identical Yeah, right, expressions painted on their features, he shrugs. "I guess not. You pick the movie, and we raid the kitchen for edible stuff." He gets up and Jason follows him, while Camille crawls over to the TV set and starts looking through movies wiht Kyka.

"Can we come and watch the rehearsals?" Mil sifts through the DVD's in front of her, handing the occasional one over to Erika for an opinion.

"Are you even asking?" Erika ponders over two cases, putting them both back in the pile.

"I'm thanking the powers that be that we can sleep in tomorrow... Rhiannon can go without me tutoring her in the morning."

"Are you sure?"

"We're way ahead. That's the thrill of homeschooling her, she is the fast learner if I have ever seen one..."

The two long-time friends excahange a look that needs no collateral.

I_t's hard. There isn't a gun held to our head, either. We love them and they need us to be here. And when we need them, they love us enough to help us._

Movie over, the two couples retreat to their respective sleeping quarters.

They have survived another night.

**End of Flashback**

Jess snaps his paperback shut and replaces in his backpocket, his gaze sweeping the room until he finally spots Luke, catches his eye while pointing to his watch, the almost dead diner, and the stairs. Luke shrugs.

He climbs up to the apartment to find Jason going through his cd collection. He picks a jewel case, reads the tracks on the back of it, and carries it with him to the couch.

"Hey." Jess breaks the silence

"Hey." Jason looks up from Luke's couch. "You on break?"

"Yeah. Diner's completely dead." _Ok man, talk to me. I can't read freaking mind read you, even though I've known you my entire life._

"I might be needing your help..." Jason's gaze follows Jess as he sprawls on the couch next to him.

"Ain't helping you with anything 'till you own up to your side of the deal. The kid is in bed. Talk."

"All right. First off, you're gonna be asking about school. We had to cut the school year short. The building is... ancient, 'cause old just doesn't describe it, and it decided to pick the past two months to fall apart on us. Hence, they opened our cages earlier."

Jess indicates with a nod that this information has been absorbed.

"How did we get here? My father had a business trip planned, and he coincidentally had two more flights available as fringe benefits. I wanted Jordan to come, but... he has to take exams until the end of July, he has Camille, and..."_ He just can't be here._

"He thinks that something short of an eight hour flight away is too close." _I can't blame him. Miss him? Yes. Wanting to see him again? Hell yeah._

"Yeah. That's just about it. And Kyka... I told you she was accepted for that exchange program. She will leave for Paris in September, and... I don't know... Time together before that won't hurt."_ She is going to be gone for six months, maybe more._

"I get it. Still..."_ Why are you here to begin with? _

"I thought I could take it full on. You know, America, NYC, everything..." _But, well, obviously I couldn't. I can't even think about going back without feeling sick._

"No, huh?"

"No. I wanted to take the first flight out as soon as I stepped in the airport. I wanted to throw up everything I've ever eaten in my entire fucking life. That's why I told my father I would be visiting you before deciding what to do."

"Rhiannon?"

"Rhiannon visits with the McAdams from the fourth of July on. Meaning she stays a month with me and Kyka and my father. The plan was to spend time in NYC, but..."_... that kinda fell through._

"Did she want to?"

"No. She told meway too many times the usual three days she stays there per year are enough. Thank the gods the McAdams have relatives in Florida whom they spend the entire month with, or the kid would go nuts."

"Staying sane is not an option. "_ At least for any of us in NYC_. "Ok, neither of you can go back there. So...?"

"Well... if Star's Hollow happens to have room for three more..."

"Sure you can handle this place? It's weird..." _Understatement. Big, huge understatement_.

"I think the three of us might need this place." Jason seems conflicted, then seems to be making a decision regarding the internal argument he's been having.

"Tension at home is running on its highest level. Ending the school year early seemingly meant that we had twice as much stuff to prepare. It was absolutely nuts. Jord and Mil have big exams planned for both this and the fall session, and... They can't deal with much more than that, right now." _I still don't know how we did it last year._

"I know what you mean. " I know what is going to start happening in a few days from now. I've read enough of your mails to last me a lifetime.

"You?"

"I've been worse"_ Understatement_ "Man, was I majorly messed up... But the smartest thing my mother did was sending me here." Jess breathes. _He's gonna kill me..._ "I'm still messed up. Less than before, but..." He looks down at the floor "I'm probably not going to graduate with the rest of my class..."

"What!" _Jess Mariano? The guy who pulled A's and B's in his freshman year without as much as looking back over his notes the night before a test?_

"I missed too many days, and I didn't care about it enough. I'm thinking about G.E.D.ing, though. I wanna get it over with by the end of summer" _I stopped caring three years ago._

"As long as you get the fucking piece of paper, you... God, I can't fucking believe I'm having this conversation with you."

"I will. I know. And..." _How is she doing?_ He glances at his bedroom door. Jase follows his gaze.

"Everything I wrote in my e-mails is true. She is growing up. She won't grow out of what happened, cause let's face it, none of uswill beable togrow out of something like that, but... it gets better. And" he proceeds on a lighter tone "She's spoiled rotten. She has the four of us at her beck and call. Not to mention my father, and Jordan's father. Oh, by the way, my father is dating a tall, sickeningly thin blonde number."

"Huh. Should I be sorry?" _It's been what, five years since the divorce?_

"No. She's ok, actually. She doesn't intrude, she makes him smile, and she isn't after his money. It's her being so skeleton like that makes it unsettling... And before you ask, I'll see my mother when she deems me worthy of notice."_ So sometimes in the near to distant future._

"Wasn't about to mention anything about her." Jess thinks for a second. "Where are you guys planning to stay?"

"We aren't planning anything yet. I need to talk to Kyka first."

"Well, if you are interested, there is an apartment as big as this is, one door over, above the Soda Shop. You gotta talk to Luke, but..."

"Sure."

"Oh, and the next tenant is going to be living there in september. So rent isn't a problem."

"That wouldn't feel right. I could pay rent. We both work at home, we could work here too..."

"Well, if I G.E.D I'll be taking classes. Meaning there will be uncovered shifts at the diner..."

"That might just work. I'll talk to..."

"Erika. Yes, I know. You in a serious relationship... I thought that was the living example of an oxymoron."

"Get over it Mariano. It's almost three years. And, you shouldn't be talking. What I saw this morning didn't exactly scream 'casual'."_ But she seems right for you._

_Thank God it isn't._ "Huh. You learn something new every day."

"Jess?" A small voice comes from behind them. The duo seated on the couch exchanges a gaze, and turns around to see Rhiannon walking the lenght of the living room, hair disheveled, pouty lips and hazy I-just-woke-up eyes.

"Wher'ss a bat'room?" Jess points her in the right direction, smiling at her sleep induced slur. Another glance passes between two life long friends, traveling the lenght of the friendship itself, leaving an unanswered question in the air.

_Now what?_

**A/N: next on LUFI, you are getting the lowdown on the Italian contingent. And after that, you get answers. I promise. :) M.**


	12. Deuces Are Wild

Disclaimer: I own nothing that isn't mine. Cute, huh?

A/N: For my sake, let us pretend that:

1. The whole money problem in "Those Are Strings, Pinocchio" happened, and was solved, before graduation.

2. Lorelai and Rory decided to defer Europe for at least another year, and they're going to work on the Dragonfly throughout the summer.

3.Rory and Kyka did talk at the bridge. That conversation is, however, meant for you to read later on.

4. Sookie and Lorelai bought the Dragonfly.

5. Two weeks have passed, Jess has started his G.E.D. classes in Hartford, since Star's Hollow High won't let him.

6. Rory aced all her finals. (Of course.)

7. Rhiannon's birthday has come and gone. I'll tell you about the party later on.

Chapter 12: Deuces Are Wild

It's the day before Rory's graduation.

The past two weeks had been hectic, to say the least, and everybody was still adjusting to the sudden changes that had been thrown at them during said time.

Rory Gilmore was graduating. That alone was going to be something big.

Lorelai Gilmore and Sookie St. James had gotten their own inn, and that, again, was something huge.

Star's Hollow had had to deal with Jason D'Antona, Erika Lairs, and Rhiannon Vianti, but that had been hilarious.

And Jess Mariano was taking G.E.D. classes in Hartford, and that... that was downright unbelieavable.

No. Correction. The most unbeliavable thing had been the town meeting.

**Flashback**

Where Taylor fairly attacked Luke for renting his apartment to an unmarried couple, said unmarried couple for spreading evil morals, and said evil morals for corrupting, ironically, Rhiannon. Said Pure Maiden, as Jess likes to call her, happens to have a very low tolerance level for insults thrown at the people she loves, and she suddendly stands up, stamping her foot, and begins yelling at Taylor.

"Stop that!"_ He's being mean. I don't like him. _

"Excuse me? Somebody keep that child under control. See? That is exactly what I mean, the lack of proper parenting..."

"I said stop that! Why are you so mean to them? They're nice to me. They're nice to everybody..."_ They love me._

Erika wraps an arm around the Half Pint.

"Hush, don't worry."_ Nice going, market guy, you managed to upset the kid._ She whispers in her ear. "Let him speak. As long as we don't care..." She raises her voice. "Because we don't care what you think. Really."_ Where does he get off thinking like that? People in Sicily don't think like that anymore... and we're talking Sicily, here..._

Taylor looks about ready to launch into a Rant, when Rory speaks up, shooting Erika a look.

"Oh, leave them alone, this is insane." _It's worse than when they dissect my relationship with Jess._ She turns to Luke "Can we go to the diner and have coffee? I believe that Pearl, over there, would like some pie."_ I know where Rhiannon is coming from. This whole moral tirade is grating on my nerves._

Rhiannon nods, Jess catches the literary reference, and they all get up to leave, leaving behind a bewildered town meeting.

**End of Flashback**

Jess Mariano is sitting on the floor in the gazebo, at the center of the town square, a worn copy of Oliver Twist in his left hand, legs bent at the knees and spread apart, back and head resting against one of the walls. Rhiannon is slouching on the gazebo floor as well, her upper body draped over one of his legs, her arms wrapping around it, her head leaning on his knee. Her raven curls are a messily spread blanket, and he twirls his index finger in it as he reads to her. She makes a purring noise, and he laughs.

"See? I do remember."_ I couldn't forget. Locking it away, hiding it behind layers of indifference, pretending it was nonexistant... Not succeeding at any of those, I could do. Forgetting? No._

"You never forget anything..." she replies, moving to rest her head against his chest, curls spilling to cover her face.

"I was mad..."_at you, for a long time._

He frowns.

"When?"

"When we left. I wanted you to come there with us."

"You know I couldn't."

She nods, solemnly.

"I wanted to stay mad at you. Then I read the e-mails you were sending to Jase... and I was missing you tons. And hating you tons, 'cause you were here and not there, at home with us. And last year, when I saw you, I hated you then, too."

"Did you stop hating me at some point?" _My home wasn't where you guys were. It wasn't even New York. It was here, Star's Hollow, with its annoying people, the stupid festival, the let's hate Jess undertones... Luke... Rory_.

"Yeah... You ask about me..." _I liked that you were writing that..._ She turns her head to fix a somewhat liquid gaze to his. "Think they know..." _what I'm doing, where I am, that I love them?_

"They know, Pure Maiden..." He nods.

"I miss them." she said quietly "there are days I wake up and can't remember their faces, or what they used to say anymore..." Jess follows a tear making its way down to her mouth, trying to breathe around the knot he feels rising in his throat. "I miss them so, so much... And I don't get to see them ever again. I hate them so much, for leaving like that..." She buries her crying eyes in the folds of his shirt, and his hands find their way to her hair, his arms drawn around her in a protective hug. He knows everything and can't stop dams from breaking and the resulting overflow from pouring into his head, those same thoughts and feelings he vowed to repress three years prior invading, pulling, pushing, claiming him as their own.

_Why? Why did all this have to happen to her? To us?_

He doesn't have the answers to give himself, much less her. He can't explain, and he can't solve, and he can't make everything all right. So he just holds her, as close to him as possible, as strongly as he can, to help her face the pain he knows will never stop, and that he knows is too big for her to bear alone.

_She's only nine. _His thoughts are angry and bitter. _She's only nine, and she didn't need something so horrible to happen to her. She's only nine and she couldn't deal then, and she can't deal now..._

"I guess you can't really help yourself, can you?"

The voice brings Jess out of his daze and Rhiannon out of her crying fit. Jess cringes, knowing full well who the scornful, taunting tone belongs to.

_Bag Boy. Whom I could willingly unleash all of my current frustration on. And I would not regret a minute of it._

"Who's that?" she asks, pointing at the tall, floppy haired boy standing in the gazebo in front of them.

"A guy who was just leaving, Half-Pint." His stare never leaving the newcomer."Isn't that right, Dean?"

"Is that a special talent you have?" The intruder disregards Jess' last remark "Making people cry? Now, where did I see that before?" He fakes thinking, tapping a finger on his forehead. "Oh, wait. I know. Last time I saw you, you made Rory cry. Now, you're making a little kid cry. Do I sense a pattern here?"

The only thing keeping Jess from knocking Dean straight into unconsciousness is Rhiannon's weight against his, reminding him that he can't get into a fist fight in front of her.

"Leave, Dean." he all but glowers, as Rhiannon's eyes look from one to the other before finally coming to rest on his.

_Before I hurt you and mentally scar this kid for life._

"Did you make Rory cry?" she asks him, bewildered. _Rory's nice... and Jess can't make girls cry._

"We were fighting... but we made up afterwards." He says this in a slightly louder tone, more for Dean's benefit than for Rhiannon's.

_There. Suck it up and shove it, Bag Boy._

"Oh..." she dries her tears with a finger. "But she was crying?" She asks, worriedly. Jess heaves a sigh, before smirking and rolling his eyes playfully at her.

"She was. But she stopped when we decided to stop fighting."_Lorelai Leigh Gilmore belongs with me. To me. And as far away from you as possible, Frankenstein._

She smiles at him, making the tough guy forget everything about his personal enemy number one. It is small, tight, and shaky, but a smile nonetheless, and he is happy to see it gracing her lips, reflecting for a very brief moment in her eyes.

_To kill for, Pure Maiden. You have eyes to kill for. In a few years' time some poor guy is gonna be wondering what in the hell hit him._

It is Dean again that intrudes upon them, his need for a personal vendetta, or a second round of the after party insanity, clouding his already failing judgement.

"Isn't she a little too young for you? I know you aim to corrupt, Mariano... but I never tought you'd go for something like this..." Dean watches as Jess' features shift from expressing disbelief to anger to downright fury. Knowing he struck gold, he piles it right on, uncaring, or reveling in, the damage his words are provoking "You are one sick puppy, man... she's what, six?"

"I'm nine!" Rhiannon pipes up, outraged. She doesn't understand what the tall, scary guy is saying, but her age... _Noone can get my age wrong! _She then squirms in Jess' embrace, whom is trying its best to emulate a boa constrictor kind of clutch.

"Jess, can't breathe." She whispers. _What does it mean when you stare like that?_

That jolts him out of his anger-induced state. Holding back from physically harming the clueless idiot, who deems it a good idea to stand within a fifty foot range from the person he's insulting, is proving difficult for Jess; hence the steadily increasing hold on Rhiannon, to keep a firm grasp on something resembling sanity.

"Jess!" She says, scared at the expression lingering on his face, the danger in his eyes, the taut lines his features have been pulled to form.

He releases her.

"Listen, Pure Maiden, let's go to Luke's and see if we can get some pie."_ Before I give this fucker a beating he'll remember as long as he lives._ He stands up and helps her off the floor, forcing himself not to look at Dean._ If I so much as glance at him, I can kiss my self-control goodbye._ Hand in hand, they stroll off to Luke's. Neither notices Jason moving from his previously held position, sitting on the outside of the Gazebo with his back leaning against one of its walls. He pauses to brush off his pants, before stepping inside where Dean is still standing, waiting for Lyndsay, a self-satisfied smirk twisting his mouth.

"Hey asshole." He says, by means of a greeting, and proceeds to sucker punch him to the gut. Dean doubles over, taken by surprise, and tries retaliating, only to get sucker punched yet again.

"What the...?"

The commotion attracts casual strollers to the show, and causes Jess to quickly take a look over his shoulder; deciding he doesn't want Rhiannon to witness Jase beating the living crap out of Dean, he urgently ushers her in the diner while yelling for his uncle. Kyka and Luke almost drop the plates they carry when Jess rushes inside.

"Luke! Here! Pie!" With that, he's off again towards the gazebo, while Rory and Kyka glance at each other, towards Rhiannon, outside, and hurriedly go to follow him. At the gazebo, the fight is in full fledge.

"You see" says Jason conversationally, much like he would discuss a grocery shopping list with Kyka."If I were you, I'd be just a little more careful about what you're saying in front," he delivers yet another punch to Dean's solar plexus "around," another punch "or about," he punctuates with another violent punch "Jess Mariano." Dean manages to shake him off long enough to try lounging at him, landing a successful hit on Jase's jaw, and another directly to his ab area.

"Big mistake, man." Jase punches Dean square in the face, proceeds to ram him against one of the walls, and deliver a knee to his groin. "Jess can take you, and you know it. Too bad for him that Rhiannon was there. And too bad for you that I was there." Jase drives his point home with one more punch to Dean's face "Stay away. Or I'll let Jess fight his own battles. And trust me, man, he can make this seem like foreplay. Pleasant foreplay." With that last remark, he lets Dean go, who slumps to a heap on the floor. He strolls off, before anybody can actually separate them, and the crowd who has gathered around the gazebo parts to let him through. Rory, Kyka, and Jess follow him back to the diner, where Luke is keeping Rhiannon busy.

"What the hell was that?" bellows Luke. Rory and Kyka just look at him with questioning gazes, and Jess shakes his head.

"You heard?" _So it still works that way, doesn't it?_

"I heard" _Nothing changed._

The glance traveling the distance between them holds secrets and whispers of shared memories.

_If they strike, we strike right back at them. _

_And if they mess with one, they mess with all of us._

"I could have..." _handled it. But not in front of Rhiannon_.

"Yeah, but the grapevine has it that you already had your fun with him. I wanted to have my ride." _And that guy had it coming. Really. He doesn't have an iota of common sense, to say the least. And he definately has __less brains than your average homo sapiens... And a huge death wish... And you wouldn't have fought in front of Rhiannon._ The adrenaline rush is kicking off, leaving Jason less coherent than he'd like to be at that precise moment.

"He heard? He heard what?"_ Fighting? I thought that was Jess's specific talent... Shit! _Luke's bellowing sums just everybody's next unexpressed words.

"What the big, tall, scary guy with that... floppy hair was telling Jess... Something about making Rory cry and... him being a puppy... and... " Rhiannon looks as confused as she sounds, and Jess sighs as the other people in the diner look to him for explanation.

"He basically called me a pedophile, 'cause Rhiannon was sitting on my lap." _Like I could ever lay a finger on her... _The very thought makes Jess nauseous. He suddendly wants to throw up, or throw Dean against a wall. Or throw Dean against a wall before throwing up all over him. _Wait Bag Boy. Fuck up just once more, make my fucking day_. "She was crying..." _And I wasn't far behind, either._ His chocolate brown eyes cloud, and Rory, sensing a change in his demeanor, goes to sit on his lap, feeling anger and fury turning liquid and flowing out of him, to be replaced by the pain and sadness she desperately wants to rip from him.

Jason and Kyka exchange a look. It is that time of the year again, when Rhiannon becomes moodier, broodier, than ever, bestowing the hurt caused by her unhealed wounds freely on the world at large. To witness while she rides her personal emotional rollercoaster and her personality takes a ninety degree turn towards its darker side is, to say the least, unsettling. Disturbing. It takes a ridiculous amount of inner strengtening, steeling and bracing to master the whole ordeal and help her through it.

"He what? I mean... what?" Rory jumps up. That is too much. She has tried. She has accepted to be friends with Dean and while trying to force Jess down that path as well. She has been tolerating withering glares, snide remarks, glowering and muttered insults, as well as the sheer amount of testosterone that made both of those guys turn into uncivilized mammals.

_Now,_ she thinks, _I've had it_.

"Not in so many words, Ror, but the implication was all there. " He pauses, questing and succeeding in recollecting the words that had cut deeply into him: "'Isn't she a little too young for you? I know you aim to corrupt Mariano' and 'You are one sick puppy' kinda spelled it out."

"I'm gonna talk to Dean" She makes for the door, but Jess stops her by means of his voice.

"Don't go." _Please. Stay. Hold me. Tell me you don't believe him._

The blue eyed beauty nods and goes to settle back in on his lap, in his arms, safe in their cocoon. She complies to what she understands he's asking, resting her body against his, placing her mouth on his for a brushing kiss. There is something shockingly intimate and unbelievably chaste about this gesture, something only for them to take notice of.

_Huh._

"Are you going to say anything to me?" Jase asks his girlfriend, starting their usual post- fist fight routine.

_Come on, Amore, this is usually when you walk towards me..._

She walks over to him with an angered expression and smoldering eyes. She looks like she's about to launch into a ranting, me civilized woman, you uncivilized man, tirade.

"You, James D'Antona" she pauses for dramatic effect "Are my hero!" she squeals, imitating a school girl who gets to meet her favorite movie star and throwing her arms around him.

"You encourage this?" asks Rory, not believing a word she's hearing. _I hate it when Jess fights. I worry when he fights. I think it's stupid when people fight._

Kyka shrugs.

"I tried going against it. Then, one night, we were coming out of a bar, and a guy started hitting on me. When he didn't take the hint and mistook my 'no' for a 'I'm all for it', Jase put a damper on his 'I'm getting some whether you like it or not' intentions." She shakes her head in utter disgust."That's when I stopped." _'Cause I know he does what he does for a reason. And I know it's as much a part of him as dancing._

"Oh, crap! It took that for you to understand I don't just go around hitting people for the hell of it?" He deadpans to her.

"How was I supposed to know?" She puts a hand to his face, jokingly trailing it towards his jawline "You're a man. I'm not supposed to understand how your..." _testosterone driven mind works_. She breaks off the routine when she sees him wince.

"He hit you." She says, noticing the bruise and the swelling forming, and remembers Dean punching him. "Luke! Ice for the Gladiator over here!"

Luke rolls his eyes, Jase and Jess smirk, and Rory and Kyka share a smile.

**Later That Day**

Rory and Jess are laying on her bed, holding each other tightly.

One of Lane Kim's patented burns is playing for them, this time a mix of weird, mostly fast paced, not meant for candle lit dinners songs. The Distillers are currently clashing with the conversation that's about to be had...

"I bet you killed someone

oh yeah?

come on I beg you

my world comes tumblin' down"

"About Dean..." He needs to tell her why his words angered him so much. "Rory..." _Tell me you didn't believe him, you don't believe I would do something so unthinkably low._

"I don't believe him" She reaches to kiss him lightly.

**Flashback**

"This is an old subject, Jess. You know that Dean and I are friendly."_ And I chose you, you big idiot. Please don't pull a Dean and go obsessively jealous on me. I couldn't take it._

"I know you're friendly. That doesn't mean I don't wanna punch him."_ That would be the highilight of my day._

"This was not a plan. I was kidnapped by Miss Patty, so was he, that's it."_ Stop feeling threatened by him, Jess. I'm with you._

"Then you two should press charges."_ So is this what it feels like?_

"I think we should." she smiles, feeling the tension letting up and their usual connection vibrating through the phone line.

"Just..." he hesitates, trying to regain control of the free fall he seems to be on. _Is this how the insecurity, the fear of losing you are? I don't want to be like this..._

"What?"_ C'mon Jess. You know I'm not playing mind games with you... _

"Just tell me these things first so I don't have to read about them on telephone poles."_ Is this jealousy? Part of the package of being in a serious relationship with someone you... love? Love? Oh God._

And he's still free falling. Her next words shock him right out of his reverie.

"I will, I promise."_ That I won't hide anything from you. That we're going to be ok_.

"Okay."_ I think I'm gonna hold you to that, blue eyed beauty._

"Okay."

**End of Flasback**

"I'm not sorry I fell in love with you in NYC

she ran away"

"Tomorrow's the big day, huh?"

"Yes. Tomorrow." She feels his body against hers, the way his arms rest around her.

"Are you sorry you won't be going to Europe?"

"No. Mom and I decided to defer it for a year, when the Dragonfly will be up and running. I want to work this summer, put some money away for Yale."

He kisses her gently.

"Is that your way of telling me you're happy I'm staying?"

"Nope. That was 'Congratulations, you're graduating'"

"Yay."

Holding her in his arms, he rolls them both over to straddle her. His hands thread slowly over her clothes, barely touching her until he lets them rest on the pillow on each side of her hear. His lips become passionate, then, the kissing breathtakingly drawn out.

"Ask the angels who they're calling,

go ask the angels if they're calling to thee"

A smirk flits through her features.

"Was that a 'I'm glad you're staying?'"

"Nope. That was a 'thanks for putting up with me.'" His voice is truthful, even though his eyes are tainted with mischief.

"You're welcome, then."

She respond teasingly, mischief sparkling in her gaze as well.

"Ask the angels while they're falling"

He pins her hands to the bed and kisses her forcefully, then, almost bruising her lips and claming her entire mouth as his own, leaving her no time, no response, no coeherent thoughts.

_Oh yes, angels are definitely falling._ The Distiller's song shockingly appropriate.

"That, was a 'I'm happy you're staying'" He informs her, releasing her hands but still straddling her, effectively trapping her in place. She doesn't mind.

She becomes serious, though, when she feels his hands retracing their earlier steps, this time the touch is heavy, even over her clothes, and her own fingers move to grasp a hold of something, anything on Jess. His clothes, his hair, his bare skin under the shirt, as she feels his finally managing to slip under hers. He shakes his head at her.

"No, Rory..." He takes her hands off of him and holds them to her sides. "No touching."

She pouts, while her eyes show she's intrigued.

Disorganized chaos gives way to organized chaos as Green Day's 80 begins playing.

"What game are you playing?" Her question part curiosity, part excitement, part disappointment.

"The game where I get to keep my sanity as well as my clothes... and I make you lose both." _Wanna come out to play, blue eyed beauty?_

She widens her eyes, then, but refuses to struggle.

_Should I play, Dodger?_

He seems to sense this and puts his lips to her ear, his breath tickling her neck.

"Trust me..."

"Is there any cure for this disease someone called love  
Not as long as there are girls like you"  
She can barely nod. She knows she can tell him to stop and stop he will when she'll as much as hint at it.

He sets to work on his gameplan, then, fully set on making Rory Gilmore give up on both sanity and clothing. His mouth trails kisses from her mouth to her neck, eliciting moans from her when he nibbles gently behind her ear, and again when his teeth pull at the hollow where collarbones meet sternum.

"Everything she does questions my mental health  
It makes me lose control  
I just can't trust myself"

One hand laces with hers, and the other reaches to play with a marble-like nipple, rolling on and off of it, teasing it with his fingers, then going to hold the entire breast. She arches her body against him, and he wills himself to ignore the way his jeans, until a moment ago as baggy as they could possibly be, suddendly tighten on him.

"So I loose my head or I bang it up against the wall"  
His tongue grazes the other, until now neglected, breast, and something undefinite shoots trhough Rory, feelings cascade through her with a chilly waterfall, mingling with the now familiar vulcanic explosions he provokes deep inside of her. She lets herself slip from reality, from present time and current space... she is beckoned to go down a starlit path to go see the other side of the moon, and she tentatively takes a step.

"I do not mind if this goes on  
'cause now it seems I'm too far gone"

"Jess..." it is barely a whisper, this name leaving her lips. He feels it hitting, bouncing off of him, pulling him back to look at her. He forgets why breathing is so important, until a a fit over the pit of his stomach reminds him that oxygen is, in fact, necessary for him to live. He watches as Rory's eyes become two battlefields, a coup d'etat staged in each of them while pupils so enlarged take almost comletely the entire space, the irises reduced to a thin, sapphire circumference. Her mouth is pouting and slightly open, her features look like they've been taken apart and put back together.

_I do that to her._ Proverbial ton of bricks leaning, tilting, falling, crashing on top of him, full force, straight on. He feels himself staggering, reeling, stumbling, tripping and reaching blindly to hold on to her.

"Jess" here it is again, his name, from her lips. She disobeys him, when she feels his arms hugging her and his body pressing to hers, and her hands find his skin once more, traveling up to his shoulders and begging for him to take his shirt off.

"No." He drawls out, as her fingertips find his nipples and clench around them, while her hips push upwards. He resumes kissing her, his lips and tongue and mouth leaving glistening trails on her sternum, ribs, sides, stomach, as his hands wander and trail over her face, neck and breasts. She fights, him, then, wriggling to get free of his hold and needing to step out of this maddening game. His chocolate brown eyes show worry for a minute as she pushes him off of her, only to widen when he suddendly registers her weight on him, her knees at his hips, her hands up his shirt, sliding it up and over his head.

"We're playing by my rules, now, Dodger."_ Let's see how you like someone torturing you._

She leans over to kiss him on the lips, pinning his wandering hands to the edges of the bed. He watches, part curious and part amazed as she mimicks the moves he had put on her earlier, and realizes that she has stored every bit of information he might ever have given her by means of his body language and actions... Coherence flees when her mouth latches on one of his nipples, the fingers of her hand racking around the other one. Common sense abandons him when her hips slide slowly up and down, and she rubs herself against him, mouthing the words to Deuces are Wild on the background.

""I love to look into your big brown eyes

They talk to me and seem to hypnotize"

_Oh God_

He throws his arms around her, then, pulling her to him, matching movement to movement, skin to skin, as he rolls them both over so he is, once again, hovering over her. Struggling to keep his sanity is an effort proving itself to be completely vain the moment he hears the sound of a pair of jeans being unbottoned, and it cannot be him undoing hers because, let's face it, she is wearing a skirt. His eyes search for her, an attempt to read her in order to key his reactions off of her. The moment she finally lets him in her sapphire blue twin pools, he feels the sudden urge to laugh, for the words "What do I do now?" are written plainly on her features.

"I really love you little girl

I don't need to explain"

"Ask me" she all but orders, confusion melting into decision, decision into resolve, resolve into steel.

He brings his face close to hers, drowning himself in her eyes, breathing carefully shaped words to her parted lips. His mind is reeling, he doesn't know what to say or what to do

"Rory. Are you ready?"

"Yes." she breathes just as carefully.

"I love you 'cause your deuces are wild, girl

like a double shot of lovin' so fine"

The next minutes, hours, are a blur, as clothing is hastily shed, protection sought, and cajoling caresses are exchanged. He asks her once more, with the same throaty drawl.

"Are you sure?"

He takes her, then, claims her, all of her, and sends them both towards a precipice, catastrophy awaiting them, surrendering to overwhelming sensation, coursing blood, racing hearts, ragged breathing. It is a steady stream of whispered reassurances and instinctive motions, as he slowly guides her through her first adult journey into uncharted and unfamiliar territory. He forces his body to pace itself, knowing she will have to acquire information one piece at the time. She hangs onto him, trading "I love you"'s with his voice, matching him move for move, thrust for thrust, kiss for kiss; and they are reeling, hurtling, falling together into oblivion.

"I been lovin' you since you was a child

'cause you and me are one of a kind"

"I hope you don't regret this, Blue Eyed Beauty", his private name for her slipping out of his lips, his filters completely askew and malfunctioning. _How long till you see I'm not worth it? _His insecurities menacingly scheme a mutiny against rationality. He is rewarded by her pulling his arms tightly around her body, and the solemn

"Shut up. I love you. I'm never going to regret this." She gives him, followed by a playful "You gave me a pet name, Dodger. That means we're stuck together." Somehow, she doesn't worry about the answer she might get, her thoughts gently occupied with seven annoyingly repeating words.

_Look at me, I'm all grown up._

"As long as we're within reaching distance..." he picks the word out of thin air, part of their relationship as much as Oliver Twist

"We can deal with that." They finish together, voices drawling and strained with sleep and exhaustion.

"I love you." He finger-writes on her stomach.

_We made love._

_We made love._


	13. So, This Is Jess?

Disclaimer: I own nothing, unless what was mine to begin with.

A/N: Guys! Answers!

Chapter 13: So, this is Jess?

It is nearly midnight and Jess Mariano is bargaining with Morpheus for some sleep.

_Please._

Morpheus silently refuses his quasi desperate plea.

_I'll give you my whole book collection. _

Morpheus mockingly shakes his head.

_My CD's. _

Morpheus will not listen.

_Luke's entire flannel wardrobe._

Morpheus slips a little further away.

_My firstborn. Whatever you want, I'll give. But I need to sleep_.

When Jess Mariano can't sleep, he becomes irrational. Last time he was caught trying to tie Morpheus down in order to take advantage of him, his brain was seriously considering exchanging his conscience for a few first editions, probably of some Hemingway classic or another. The age old practice of tossing and turning until exhaustion pilots your body towards slumber is not sorting results, and he knows why, though he isn't willing to admit it yet.

Jason.

Rhiannon.

Seeing them, day after day, for the past two weeks...

Those two names. The people associated with those names... The events associated with the people... Three years.

He feels he can no longer breathe. He is crushed between the bed and the air around him, thick with emotions and leaden with feelings. He struggles against it, each movement a titan fight, and finally manages to stumble through the door frame, down the stairs, out into the street. Little does he know that the inhabitants of yet another apartment are all too awake and aware of their surroundings. Two grey eyes follow his movements, accompanied by a little smile flitting across graceful lips.

"Anything interesting out there?" the voice is teasing. _You and your insane fixation with windows._

"A Romeo is going to his Juliet." She motions towards the retreating figure.

"Good."

They stand next to the window, holding each other and glancing at the slumbering girl curled up in the bed they've been sharing for the past two weeks. Soon, demons will start invading her dreams, and it will be up to them to help her fight them, praying that they will leave her alone until morning.

Jess meanders and wanders through Stars Hollow in a daze. As his image reflects from Rory's window, he suddendly and unexpectedly comes back to reality

_Huh... How did I get here?_

He makes to turn around, but he finds himself rooted to the porch in front of her room, unable to move, to pace, to run. So he stays. And he waits. What for, he doesn't know. For how long, he cannot tell. But slowly he takes note of how her body arranges itself in sleep, how her hair spreads on the pillow, how breathing causes the picture depicted in front of him to change, delicately, with each passing second. Fascinated, his brain doesn't register that she has turned around, that her sapphire blue eyes are staring back at him through the window pane. His brain works by association, and he soon remembers watching someone else sleep, and that image morphes into yet another, something far less pleasant and incredibly more painful to be looking at. He is so engrossed in the movie-rama playing itself out in his head, he doesn't really see her until she opens her window.

"Dodger?" _What are you doing standing here, like this, with that haunted look in your eyes?_

Her voice unroots him, and he turns to leave, scared with himself, his memories, his feelings. It is again her voice who stops him.

"Within reaching distance..." _Whatever__ it is, if you want to throw at me, I can carry it._

He climbs into the window, then, and stands awkardly next to it, waiting for her next move. She goes back to laying on the bed, on her side, facing him, with her arms held open. He kicks off his shoes, sheds the light jean jacket he tossed over his t-shirt, and follows it with his jeans and socks. He is now wearing the same amount of clothes Rory, who had been sleeping in a tank top and shorts, is, and he goes to her arms, shuddering helplessly, his back to her chest, legs tangled and her lips close to his ear.

"Good evening" she breathes.

"I'm so sorry, did I wake you? I shouldn't have been here, I know, it's creepy, hell, it's illegal, but I couldn't sleep, and I was watching you there, and..." He's rambling._ Nervous, Mariano? What is wrong with you?_

"Shhh..." she leans over a little to face him, her sapphire blue eyes meeting his chocolate brown, mingling glances and trading words unspoken. There is something guarded in his gaze, and untold tale that desperately needs counting, and fear.

"Who hurt you?" _I want to know Jess. I'm here, right here. Talk to me._

Rory finally voices the question aloud, sensing that now she can.

He is taken aback by the sheer amount of force those three words carry. He disbelievingly stands aside as he witnesses slow motions, as if on the outside looking in, while the last of the barricades crumble, the last of his resistances flee and surrender, while prisoners are freed and loved ones rejoined. He is suddendly, unconceivably exposed to her, and, he realizes that he doesn't resent her, that he wants...

_I want what?_

_Her._

_You have her._

_No. I want her to know._

_You're damaged goods._

_I don't fucking care._

And ignoring the need to pull back and retreat into his shell, he starts telling, and remembering, and unleashing his past upon her. He's scared of giving her too much to carry, but he now knows he can share it with her without either becoming crushed by its sheer weight. There is something inside that is begging him to surrender to this new need of needing her. He bares himself to her, while sinking into her embrace, seeking her warmth and her reassurance, hanging on to her as if she were the only safe haven during a hurricane.

She is.

**Fashback**

Jess is five, and his mother is taking him with her to work, because the baby sitter canceled on her and she can't find anyone else on such short notice. He settles for slouching in a chair next to her desk, with a book he found abandoned on the bus. His fingers trace letters forming words, a trick he learned letters can do. Two boys of about eight come inside, and noticing the kid let themselves close to him.

"Whatcha readin'?"Asks the one with the brown eyes and hair. Jess holds up his book, shy and a little afraid. _These are big kids_.

"Wow, you already reading that? I'm reading that for school" He remarks, a little impressed. He has only mastered reading last year.

"What's this word?" Jess points out a word whose letters don't make sense, becoming braver with the big kids' friendliness.

"Uh... damage" reads the other one, the one with the black curly hair."Wanna come with us? We were gonna annoy my dad."

"Why?" _Is that allowed?_

"'Cause if he gets annoied, he buys lunch" states the other boy, shaking his head as if it were obvious.

"'K". Jess hops off the chair and follows in their wake...

... Jess is six, first grade is just starting, and his mother comes home with a new boyfriend. He seems nice, and friendly, and he makes his mother happy. He buys him toys, takes him around town, to the park, to shops. For a while, life is fun and Jess can see his Mommy smile and he's smiling too, 'cause they're happy...

..."Hey Mark! Mommy! I got a gold star!" _Ms. Hensen said I was the best in reading out loud today._

"Well, something like that sure deserves a prize, doesn't it, Liz?" Mark smiles at the kid's obvious excitement.

"Sure. It does. How about... we go to the bookshop and look at all the books?" Liz knows exactly what makes her son happy.

"Can we buy 'em?" _Please, please, please. I want new books..._

"Maybe one or two"

... Jess is seven, second grade halfway through, and his mother is acting weird. She comes home late at night, stumbling.

_What's wrong with mom?_

She forgets things, she doesn't buy food, her breath smells funny. She doesn't pick him up for school once, and when noone can find her anywhere, he says to call Jordan's mom. Jess can't sleep at night 'cause she keeps fighting with her boyfriend. When they say goodbye, Jess hugs Mark and tells him he loves him. He gets a sad smile, and a "I know kid, me too" spoken in tones of regret and remorse...

... Jess is eight and his mom has yet another man. This guy is... scary. He looks at him funny, and has his hands all over his mother. _Ew_. Once, Jess eats the last two cookies for his four PM snack.

That's when it begins.

"There were cookies in here." he walks closer.

"I ate 'em."

"Why?" he steps even closer.

"I was hungry." Jess begins squirming.

"Who told you you could?" he leans in, his face is just inches from Jess'.

Jess shrugs. _I never ask for food. _

He gets hit so hard across the face he stumbles backwards. His eye becomes swollen, and the next morning, when Jason meets him in front of the school, he fibs and tells him he banged against a bed post. Stupid, really...

... Time goes by and his bruises increase, in number and viciousness. It is Jordan's twenty-one year old brother, Axel Vianti, who points out to his parents that there is something wrong with this picture. Ceridwen McAdams, who, in addition to being his long-time girlfriend, works at the battered youth shelter Axel volunteers at, confirms his hypothesis...

... He spends more and more time at Jordan's and Jason's as time passes through. He's been friends with them ever since he met them that day, when he was reading the lost book. He will learn much, much later that his mother has a deal with her employers: either she takes better care of Jess, or she loses her job. She refuses to give up the relationship she's trapped in, as disfunctional and abusive though it is, and begins losing her son instead, justifying her actions by means of "I'm protecting him. And Zack will shape up, and everything will be ok". He' too young to understand what is going on, and he's happy like that. He practically lives with his two best friends, who don't pick on him too much even if they're three years older. He has someone he considers a big brother too. And he has his friends' parents, people who come home every night and don't yell without a reason, who certainly don't use their kids as punching balls...

... He's going to be nine soon, and third grade is a couple of weeks away from letting out for the summer. Jordan and Jason, who are now twelve and in sixth grade, at the middle school right across the street, wait with him for Axel to pick them up. The twenty-two year old policeman looks harried and disheveled as he screeches to a halt in front of them and rolls down his window.

"Get in! Come on!" They scramble to the backseat, and when Axel screeches to yet another stop at the hospital parking lot, they look confusedly at each other.

"Are you sick?" Jason asks Jess, who shakes his head.

"I had my last shot last month" he says.

Jordan looks from the hospital to his brother who is practically making a dash for the door and understanding dawns on his face.

"Oh... I know what's going on!"

"What?"

"It's Ceri." he pauses dramatically "She's having the baby!"

The other two boys widen their eyes, and the three of them follow Axel's running form.

It's hours later, with the three boys asleep on the hospital chairs, homework done and cafeteria food picked at, that Jordan's father shakes them gently.

"You guys... come on, wake up..."

"Wha... Dad? What's..."

The foursome trudges to the nursery, where the adult points to a baby swathed in a pink blanket.

"That's Rhiannon Amelia Vianti" he turns to the three boys, who stand there "Say hi"

They wave. He grins, and is joined by Axel, who is also grinning like a madman.

"So, how's the dad?"

"Scared out of his freaking mind" His father shoves him. "Sorry guys."

They trio ignores him, and keeps looking at the baby.

"It's... tiny..." Jess says.

"It's a she. And she's supposed to be. She was just born..."

"And she was in Ceri's belly? And how did she get there?" Jess is befuddled. Axel's eyes widen and puts two hands to Jason's and Jordan's mouths, effectively preventing them from answering him. He shakes his head and plays older brother.

"Hey, Dad, take those two to see Ceri. Jess and I will get sodas and meet you there.OK?"

"Fine. You go and... practice." Mr. Vianti smiles wickedly at Axel, then sighs thinking that at least that kid has them to fall back on. It doesn't matter if he doesn't have the right family connections, or belongs to the wrong side of the tracks. They took Jess Mariano on long ago, the Viantis and the D'Antonas, because they couldn't stand by and watch his mother ruin his life, when they so obviously could do something about it. So far, it seems to be working.

"So, Jess, do you want to know how babies make it into their mother's bellies?" Axel shakes his head. He hadn't envisioned giving the talk until much, much later, to his daughter... _I have a daughter..._

... He's eleven and Rhiannon is two, and he's watching her sleep on the couch at Axel's house while Jordan and Jason throw punches at each other on the carpet. As Jordan tackles Jason, the little girl stirs and whimpers in her sleep. _No. Don't. You look so cute when you sleep. I don't know what to do when you wake up._ Jess whispers something he remembers reading from a book earlier during the day.

"Can't you see that I don't want any favours from you? And I can't understand why you should want to confer favours on people who - who don't care a damn about them. I mean, people who find it very difficult to accept favors..." He keeps quoting Dostoyevsky, along with random passages from the books he's been reading, until his whispering lulls the kid back to sleep...

... He's twelve, and he hasn't been able to escape his mother's latest boyfriend. He shows up at Jordan's with bruises and cuts all over his body, his lip swollen, and crumbles to a heap on the doorstep before a horrified Axel can catch him. He wakes up in the hospital, concerned faces all around him. The only person who isn't there is his mother, and this, this makes him break the code of silence he has lived by for so long. He tells Ceri, whose social worker abilities lay in not asking a single question while getting the abused kids to spill their guts, what happened with his mother's later catch: he beats her, then proceeds to vent his anger on Jess if he so happens to breathe. This has been going on for months, now, but since he practically lives at Jason's, he hasn't had many run ins with unfriendly doors or uneven steps. The family tam-tam follows standard proceedings. Ceridwen tells Axel, who in turns discusses this with both the D'Antonas and the Viantis, not noticing that fifteen year old Jordan and Jason are hiding at the top of the staircase, listening to every word. They corner him later, and he tells them everything Jess told Ceri. He tells them he can't let this go on much longer, and they nod.

Then Jason gets an idea.

"Ax... you could show him..."

Axel nods.

"I mean, we started two years ago... but he could use it now" Jordan latches on to his best friend's train of thought.

"Yes." The twenty five year old agrees. He can't stand there and do nothing for Jess, who in turn refuses any and all proposals of tearing his mother's life further to shreds by involving the police...

... And so they teach him how to fight back. How to watch for the telltale signs giving away the other guys' direction and aim. How to duck. How to protect his vulnerabilities. How to strike, how to blind, how to block. How to quell your fears by becoming stronger...

"If they mess with one of us, they mess with all of us."

"And if they strike, we strike right back at them."

Their friendship acquires two more rules. And they quietly promise themselves to abide them.

... He's thirteen, and at the eight grade dance, a girl asks him to the dance floor. She has a long red braid, her eyes sparkle with the lights. He slow dances with her to Always, by Bon Jovi, and he finds her so close he can't help himself. He gets his first kiss that night, and many kisses like that over the next few months. Innocent and slow. They keep "dating" until the end of the school year...

... He is a few weeks short of fourteen and is graduating middle school. Rhiannon, who is now five, jumps in his arms and yells "Congratulations!" Jordan, Jason, Axel and the rest of the two families smile at him as they each hold a camera to take a picture of this. He rolls his eyes and groans, but his hold on the Half Pint doesn't unclench. His eyes stray to the sad looking woman at the back of the room, and their gazes meet for a second. He sets Rhiannon down and goes to meet her, shocked to see the person standing next to her.

"Lizzie." _Mom._

"Jess..." she sighs. She hates it when he calls her that, but she knows she deserves it. "Remember your uncle?"

"Uncle Luke." _I remember him. He sends cards and stuff... and I saw him a couple of times..._

"Jess." Luke looks around "Congratulations, kid. Next stop, high school. Knock 'em dead."

Jess shakes his head and grins, then turns to go back to his friends...

... He's fourteen, school is out for Thanksgiving, and Jason is going over the last rules.

"You don't drink anything unless I tell you you can, don't do anything stupid, don't smoke anything that doesn't look, feel, or smell like your regular cigarette, don't take pills in any shape, form or color unless your period is giving you cramps and you need..."

"I get it, I get it, I'm not an idiot!" He looks in the bathroom dorway "And stop doing your fucking hair. You take more time than me! Hell, you take more time than a woman!"

"You don't know women, Jess." Jordan walks in on their discussion. His eyes wander to Jess, dressed for the party, a paperback in his hands which will very likely be stuck in his backpocket for the rest of the evening.

"Hey, did Jason tell you about not..."

"...Drinking, taking any pill stronger than a cough drop, and smoking tampered cigarettes? About fifty times." Jess rolls his eyes. He can't stand them when they go concerned older brother on him.

"Trust me, you don't want your first high school party to end up with you throwing up all over a girl, whose name you can't remember, and whose number you'll never get." Jason scowls. That is not a memory he likes to treasure.

"Huh." Jess raises an eyebrow. "Ouch."

"Exactly. Speaking of girls." Jordan hands Jess two square packages.

"What is..." he looks at them closely. "Oh." He looks towards Jordan, who is trying his best not to laugh at his expression.

_Huh._

"Oh. Right. Unless you want your very own Rhiannon to take care of and trust me, as much as I love the brat, she really is a... brat." Jordan smiles as he thinks of his niece.

"One Pure Maiden is enough, thank you very much." Jess has been calling her that since Ceridwen has told him what her daughter's name means.

"Good." Say both seniors, smirking and nodding at him. He fleetingly thinks of the girl that stole his first kisses. They lost touch, she had gone to a different high schools. He has been to a couple of high school dances since then, has gotten his share of kisses and something more, but not much. He doesn't even know if he wants more...

... Jason is examining his cut lip in the bathroom mirror, while Jordan is pacing and screaming bloody murder.

"You didn't have to do that!"

Jason shakes his head at Jess, who sits there watching them.

"You were in bed until yesterday morning. Brian Coles wanted to have it out, and trust me, he wasn't gonna wait until you got better. And yes, I know you can take him when you're up to par. Thing is, you aren't! Enter me. The guy that saved your ass!" Jordan sulks.

"Aw, poor baby. We're going to set you up for a round of fisticuff first thing on monday morning." Jess states dryly, returning his gaze to his everpresent book, only to raise his head again as they share a silent moment.

He knows they are thinking one thing.

_If they strike, we strike them right back. _

_If they mess with one of us, they mess with all of us._

... He's still in ninth grade, and is baby-sitting Rhiannon at Jordan's. Jason and Jordan come to kidnap them, and overrule his objections with a "they'll never know." He surrenders to them. It's their senior year and they need to release the tension from applications, SAT's and all that jazz. They reach the house the party is being held at, and the sleeping five year old is left to sleep in one of the rooms upstairs. They take turns in checking up on her every half hour, while Jordan stays sober so he can drive all of them home safely...

... This becomes regular occurrence during his freshman year, along with him curling up in the library every chance he gets, with a book for company. Free periods, lunches, afternoons when he doesn't want to go home and the seniors don't need a freshman to hang around them. They juggle baby sitting, partying, school and training for whatever it is they join. Jason's decision to give dancing a try during middle school, unheeding of their merciless mocking, is paying off. Jordan joins the swimming team, being water sports of all kind great loves of his. Jess goes for basketball. He lacks in height but makes up for it in agility and natural talent. He's good at it. They make it a point to go to each other's performances and games, and they keep the street fighting/self defence with Axel. It comes in helpful during a large number of occasions...

... He's turning fifteen tomorrow, and his world is about to be torn asunder.

**End of Flashback**

He stops unleashing his past on Rory. He doesn't realize he is shaking, held tight in her embrace. He feels cold, even though it's very hot outside and she is wrapped around him like a blanket. He slowly becomes aware of her hands caressing him, her lips to his ear, her soothing voice as much a part of him as the hearbeat in his chest, the blood in his veins, the air in his lungs.

"I love you, I'm within reaching distance. I'm here, Jess, see me?" she repeats gently, 'cause there is nothing else she can say to him. He wants her eyes, now, and turns to look at them. She shows no signs of fleeing.

She plunges her gaze deep into his. He looses his breath.

**Flashback**

... He's turning fifteen tomorrow, Jason and Jordan just graduated. They are both going to go to college, Jordan to NYU and Jason to Columbia, and Rhiannon is now six, but she started school a year early. NYC is hot and sticky, and they are all out celebrating the summer, the graduation, the end of the academic year, the honor roll. Axel and Ceridwen are waiting for them a few blocks ahead, but Jess is holding Rhiannon's hand and she is pulling him into a candy store. Jason and Jordan follow them.

"No. No candy for you, Half Pint. We'll be eating dinner in, like, five minutes" Jordan is pleading with his very stubborn niece.

"Geez, may Axel and his reproductory apparatus be damned" Jason swears, and Jess rolls his eyes.

"Ok, Pure Maiden, here is what we do" he states to her, knowing that just saying no doesn't obtain results."You pick a candy bar, and if you're still hungry after dinner, we'll come back and get it." _Please take me up on my offer, or your mother will kill me for buying you candy before dinner, and your father will kill me for not letting him eat dinner._

She considers, and is about to give her answer, when something outside catches their attention. Screaming.

Commotion.

Repeated gunshots.

More screaming.

The people in the store panick, hide, then run to the door. The four of them rush outside. Jess freezes right outside the entrance; he knows what he's seeing but does not, can not make it real, nor approach it. He drops to his knees and holds Rhiannon to him, her face to his chest so the sight won't make it to her head, but it's too late and she screams in his shirt, something high pitched and wordless and mind numbing. Jason and Jordan run over to the scene, only to stand helplessly over two lifeless bodies...

... He's fifteen, and is standing in front a church, completely dressed in black. He stands by Jordan's left, as Jason stands on his right, both close enough to touch him if he as much as shows signs of collapsing. Rhiannon stands in front of her uncle, and they look on as the long line of people offering to share pain makes its way to the D'Antonas and the McAdams.

Axel and Ceridwen are dead.

Shot.

Payback.

Retaliation.

Revenge.

Shot.

Death.

_They are dead!_ He wants to scream, cry, throw a raging fit, a furious unleashing of the raw pain that eats so excruciatingly slowly at his insides. But he can only stand there, a hand on his friend's upper arm, the other on Rhiannon's shoulder.

... Jess will learn later that Axel has been working undercover. Ceridwen's shelter takes in five kids who have been sexually abused, and the McAdams-D'Antona team gets roped in the federal investigation, becoming more and more involved as months go by, what with both having an extensive amount of knowledge on shattered children. What Axel uncovers ain't pretty: stealing, trading, selling, buying, using, abusing of children. Ages two to fourteen. It doesn't even feel real when someone says it out loud. Living, breathing, young human beings treated as mere objects. Underage sexual playmates... A net of pedophiliac activity ranging almost world wide...

... He remembers throwing up in the bathroom at Jason's house, where Jordan has been telling the two of them what he has been told in the debriefing his family has been given...

... He's fifteen, and holds Rhiannon one last time, proceeding to shake hands and share pats on the back with Jordan and Jason, who are moving to Italy with their families. Neither can stay in New York, neither can bear to live in it without Ax and Ceri, the older brother and sister who had looked out for them for as long as they could remember. Jordan will wait, and work, for a year before enrolling to university there, while Jason will probably do the same thing. In the meantime, Jess knows they'll be trying to forget what happened, try dealing with this huge loss noone can understand. He hates them, right then. For a moment he resents their money, their social status, their opportunities, things that none of them had deemed important in the last ten years. He wants to break them, then, for the new life they'll be able to lead. For their fathers, whose business is thriving enough to expand, hence the move to Italy... Because they'll be able to leave some part of this behind... His resentment is short lived. Their lives have been snapped in two. The wound that festers inside of them will never completely heal, or stop bleeding altogether.

So they say goodbye.

And it sounds final.

... He's sixteen and his life has been spinning out of control during the past year. He is slowly going down a landslide, no braking devices and nothing to hang on to to slow, or arrest the descent. Not that he'd use them, should he see them, but their mere absence makes the entire panorama even more daunting. His grades have been steadily slipping, from A's and B's to C's, to D's by the end of May. He escapes in his world of angry music and obscure books. He quits basketball. He parties. Hard. Too hard. He's out every night, coming home at all hours, ignoring Lizzie's threats, lectures, yells. He takes up smoking. When that doesn't provide a thrill anymore, he moves to drinking, getting plastered trying different combinations each time. It helps not to think, not to feel, not to ache.

... He slides down even further when he starts getting smashed with something more than alcohol, using drugs instead.

... He reaches the bottom of the landslide when he loses his virginity to a girl whose face, let alone name, he will not remember come morning. But he likes the feeling of having sex, it manages to fill, for a little while, the gaping hole that is constantly enlarging, deep inside of him, eroding at his soul. So he indulges in it. He has no trouble finding girls who'll ask no questions while he picks up his clothes and dresses in the half shadow of their rooms, content with having him for the night and nothing more, nothing less. It is after one of these nights that he gets sent to Star's Hollow, the redhead he had aptly steered into his bed having had a run-in with his mother who is, ironically, feeling motherly.

**End of Flashback**

He doesn't realize he has been crying, wetting her shirt, crushing and bruising her with his arms. Words and tears, once they find a way out, tumble from hiding places in long, painfully drawn cascades, asking for attention and blood.

He wants to die. At least that will stop the pain stemming from all this rehashing.

"I don't want to feel all this! I vowed I wouldn't feel anything anymore three years ago."

He gradually becomes aware, once again, of her presence; he hates her now, but it's not strong and not convincing, and he doesn't put up a fight when the whole idea of hating her for making him feel again reveals its complete ridiculousness.

Rory sits there and absorbs his desperation, his losses. Now she knows where he comes from, and she will not let it scare her away, or relinquish her hold on him; she won't let him pull away on its account, either. So she waits for him to come back to her, for the emotional overload to subside and for him to calm down; listening to the instincts whispering to her that, now, he needs her silence. So she holds onto her unobtrusiveness, until his breathing becomes regular, his heartbeat slows, his tremors still.

"So this is Jess?" she asks of him, his body harnessed with hers.

"This is Jess. And I can understand if you never want..." _To have anything to do with him ever again._

She shakes her head and stills his lips with her own, before plunging her gaze into his.

"I want." She places another kiss on his mouth, her hands on each side of his face in a reassuring caress.

"You sure? Damaged goods are high maintainance." His tone of voice underlines his fear by being devoided of all emotions. He disentangles from her, wanting to get up, panicking at the mere thought of her rejecting him, of showing her that he is, in fact, panicking, of her knowing she is, nonetheless, the source of it. He turns to lie on his stomach, ready to roll off her bed the second she realizes that...

_I'm too fucking messed up. She's gonna come up with some excuse, probably 'Next year I'm going to college and we'll be far away. Sorry Jess, nice dating you. See you around. Oh, and, by the way, sleeping with you? Worst mistake of my life'..._

"I happen to like high mantainance, and all things damaged. Pefection tends to be too highly thought of." Her voice stops him in midaction and in mid internal rant. He relaxes a little. Her body is gentle as she climbs on him, resting half of her body on top of his back, her leg thrown across both of his, one hand buried in his hair, lips and nose and breath to his neck.

_Was not expecting that, blue eyed beauty. Was not expecting that at all._

He feels weak from the emotional rush and the adrenaline high, the warmth of her body makes him surrender the least of his strenght. He can only breathe his last, final fear to her.

"Everyone... they just leave." He whispers to her. "Don't go anywhere".

He resists long enough to hear her repeating the promise that now belongs to them and them only.

"I'll be within reaching distance"

before he finally sinks into darkness, leaving Rory to fend for both of them against the demons who now roam freely in her room. He feels her battling them for him and chasing them away one by one.

He knows they will be back, but, right now, they are not there. Thanks to her.

And he lets Morpheus sweep him away, finally compliant and no longer teasing.


	14. It's Five AM!

Disclaimer: I own nothing, unless it is mine to begin with. I mean, really, people, do you think something as great as my writing could actually make it on the screwed up GG storyline? My point exactly. I'm modest. Very modest. The epitome of modesty. Deal with me and my inflated ego. :)

I apologize for the Jess bashing here... Lorelai is mad at that particular moment... but she makes up for that later on. That' s what I believe her to be thinking during the whole prom-dress discussion.

Bitter much?

Chapter 14: It's Five AM!

Once again, Lorelai Victoria Gilmore stands in her daughter's room's doorframe, contemplating the two figures dozing off on the bed. She decideds to go forth with her Graduation Day Master Plan anyways, and proceeds with shaking Rory awake and fairly pulling her off of Jess.

"Rory? Up! Up! Up!"

"Mommy?" She glances at the clock. She rubs the sleep from her eyes and does a double take, just in case. "It's five AM!"  
_Nope. I was right the first time_.

She glances down at Jess. _Good. She didn't wake him. _Then at her mother, then at Jess again.

Taking in the fact that her boyfriend is still very much deep in a seemingly untroubled slumber, she deems it safe to leave him alone for a little. He scared her, the previous night, with his revelations, his wounds, his tears. She is reluctant to leave his side, not knowing what may come next, what his mind might be set on the moment he wakes up, what he might be feeling not seeing her next to him, after she promised him she wouldn't leave him. She knows it's irrational, all of it, but she can't help herself. She jumps quickly out of bed and out of her room.

"Why are we up at this ungodly hour?" The younger Gilmore questions around a yawn.

"Because today you graduate. I have to put the finishing touches on your dress, get all emotional and teary eyed, and... I couldn't sleep, so I woke you." Lorelai narrows her eyes at her daughter."Did I interrupt something in there?"_ So not sure if I really want an honest answer to that._

"Nope. Jess came by yesterday night. To see me. " _Oh really?_ "And he kinda... fell asleep." _Yeah... after what must have been the worst emotional break down in history__... I know it's surely the worst emotional break down in his life._

"Fell asleep after having done something slutty with my favorite daughter?" Lorelai questions, seeing her daughter's thoughtfully far away stare.

"Mom!" _Oh Mom... Yesterday night was anything but.._"And no."_... Although..._"Not yesterday night, anyways..."_ Raid alarm! Everyone, please retreat in orderly fashion to your bomb-proofed bunkers._

**Flashback**

"Well, that was before." _Yeah_. Rory's bitter, the party playing over and over, striking deep within her...

"Before what?"_ What now? What did Jess do this time?_ Lorelai is growing tired of this vicious circle. Seeing her daughter happy with Jess. Seeing Jess mess up. Seeing Rory hurting over Jess. Seeing Jess make it up to Rory, in some way. Seeing Rory happy again. And then it's another fun-filled round trip of those.

"Before the party, before the fight, before the thing in Kyle's bedroom." _Bad wording, Ror. _Still. Every word, every gesture, every glance exchanged the previous night is full of hidden meaning. She acknowledge its presence, but she doesn't know what it is, or what put it there...

"Okay, come with me."_ Why do I feel the sudden urge to majorly freak out?_

She leads her daughter to the Jeep.

"Okay, we left off with the thing in Kyle's bedroom." _Oh, yeah, that's why. Because my daughter was with Jess in a bedroom. Excuse me if I'm not thrilled._

"I don't understand. One minute he's happy, then he's not." _Majorly off-putting, by the way._" And he doesn't tell me anything ever. I mean, you're supposed to tell your girlfriend things. That's the whole point of having a girlfriend, isn't it?"_ Usually.'Cause if you're Jess Mariano, chances are he'll kiss you instead of talking to you. Or..._

"Yes, it is." _Not if you're any eighteen-year-old guy with functioning hormones. Bar Dean, who's not normal. And put Jess at the top of the list. Just 'cause he's Jess. _"Now, Kyle's bedroom, what happened there?" _And if you happen to mention a certain word that starts with S and ends in X, don't mind the crazy woman with the ax dismembering the diner boy. _

"And I'm so tired of fighting. Or not even fighting because he won't fight." _No fighting. We've done that twice in two years. But at least we had things out then. _"He just gets mad and disappears and then comes back and I don't like how I feel and I don't like what I do." _I don't know what's worse. Fighting and feeling horrible, or this nothingness... and still feeling horrible... Without actually having an inkling of what happens to reside in that mind of his._

"Like what you do where, in Kyle's bedroom?"_ Rory. Talk to me, or I'll go nuts! _Lorelai is becoming increasingly worried with the whole bedroom thing.

"I don't wanna feel like this, I don't wanna sit around wondering when we're going to talk, if he's mad, why he's mad! I hate this. I really, really..." _Do. I want him to trust me. Tell me what happened to him. Why he looked so wounded. Why he lashed out at me. He never lashes out at me_. That's true. _I've seen him angry, insecure, and we've had fights and disagreements... but at the party... He scared me. Hell, he terrorized me. I've never seen him so... _There really is no word to describe what she'd seen coming from him then, but it seems clear now that he had been in need of her attention, in need of physical reassurance, in need of something she didn't know she was supposed to give him.

"Honey, you gotta tell Mommy what happened in Kyle's bedroom!"_ And you really gotta stop obsessing about this, Lore, you're starting to bear a startling resemblance to Kirk._

"Jess was upset and I went to look for him and we were kissing and then it seemed like he wanted to. . ."_ Have sex. Make love. Make me lose something unretrievable. Fuck me 'till next thursday. Deflower me. Bang, wham, thank you Ma'am. How do I put this nicely? _Thankfully, her trailing off is picked up by her now officially freaked out mother.

"Did you?" _Say no. Say you dumped the lowlife. Say he forced himself on you. Say you kicked him in the groin and..._ _Tell me one thing, one single thing that will give me an excuse to rightfully take his head as a souvenir... _She looks over at her obviously distressed daughter. _Lore, get a grip. _

"No, I didn't."_ Not then and there. But... in different circumstances... _" And then he got all weird like he was mad at me."_ Was he? 'Cause I know Jess... I have the feeling me pushing him away the way I did was the last drop. Now, I'd just like to know what the freaking vase was full of._

"Hey, if he was mad at you because you wouldn't have sex with him, then he's a jerk." _I wouldn't put it below him to be one of those guys. The kind of guy that asks for sex,and makes the girlfriend feel guilty if she doesn't put out. _

"I know that, but I don't even know if that's why he's mad at me. I don't know if he's mad at me. I don't know anything because he won't talk. He just sulks then disappears, and just when you're through with him, he shows up at hockey games with Distiller tickets." _Yeah... That evening... I wanted to kill him. And kiss him. And kill him all over again..._

"Distiller tickets? What Distiller tickets?" _When did that happen? When did you start lying to me on account of Jess? _

"Oh, that's right, you don't know about that because I didn't tell you because I was embarrassed because I didn't wanna be that girl and you don't want me to be that girl, but after the hockey game, I was that girl." _Rambling much, Gilmore? I wanted to go with him, even though he was being a complete jerk. 'Cause I wanted to be with him._

"What girl? Help me, drag me along, honey." _The girl that goes to concert and sleeps with the lowlife who treats her like dirt later?_

"The girl who lets her boyfriend treat her like dirt and then lies to her mom about it." A_nd feels like shit about it afterwards. 'Cause she didn't solve a thing. _

"Okay, you need a breath here." _And you have to tell me whether something I really hope didn't happen happened or not. Ok. I think I just lost myself in there._

**End of Flashback**

"Oh. Ok."_Hold it _"No... Wait" She mouths her daughter's words to herself."Rory! Does that mean that..." She trails off.

_All right. Here goes nothing._"...That the something slutty happened..."_ Ready for this? _"Not yesterday night..." _Here it comes. _"Yesterday afternoon. After Jason fought with Dean."_ There it is... _Sits on the couch, staring warily at her mother._ No need to tell her that we did it twice._

"Are you mad? Please don't be mad." _Mom? I couldn't take it if you were mad..._

"I'm not mad, Sweets... just... when I asked you how your day went, you could have fit that little detail in there..." _Ok_, _Lore, this is where you shut up and thank the powers that be that she's at least talking to you about it._

"I'm telling you now. Yesterday... I just needed to keep it for a while, you know?" She curls her legs under her, and watches as her mother takes up the other half of the couch.

"Ok. I understand... were you... careful?" _Please say yes. Please, please say yes. I don't want to end up a grandmother too soon._

"Yes. Very. I'm already on the... pill... but we used a..."... _condom. I hate that word._

"Ok..."_... What now?_ A malicious glint appears in those blue eyes, so likened to and so different from her daughter's. As she opens her mouth to speak, Rory beats her to the punch.

"Don't ask me if it was any good, 'cause I'm not answering that."_ I'm so not going there with you, Mom._

"Aw, you're no fun." _Oh come on. Don't deprive me of the simple pleasure of embarassing you with this._

"Deal with it." Rory's voice has the kind of hard edge Lorelai knows not to pit herself against.

"Ok. Listen... Just don't let me hear or see anything unfit for a PG-13 audience, ok?"

"Mom! You're gross!"

"Still. Lock your door, play really loud music... hang the non disturb sign on your door... but please. Walking in on the two you just sleeping is enough."

"Ok. Are you sure you're ok with..." _This whole sex... thing?_

"I can't lock you up and throw away the key, Sweets. Just... be careful. And give Mommy a little time to adjust." Deciding to drop the sex issue, for the moment at least, her sleep-deprived, coffee-lacking mind latches on to another detail of their previous conversation.

"So, why was Jason, of all people, turning Mike Tyson on Dean?" At her daughter's bewildered look. "What? It's usually Jess who wrestles with your ex-boyfriend." She can't read her daughter's expression, though. This time, she isn't as angry at the testosterone derived insanity as she usually is.

"Dean... Dean was being... obnoxious." _Geez Gilmore, where is your vocabulary? Oh, yeah. In bed. Asleep. Next to Jess. Where you should be, were your mother normal._ "To Jess. And Jess had Rhiannon on his hands, so he couldn't respond. But Jase did." She shakes her head.

"But..."

"I thought I'd never say this, Mom, but I couldn't have blamed Jess, had he decided to fight. I don't exactly endorse violence... but Jason had a really good reason to get into a fight with Dean."

"And that reason might be...?"

"That Jess was with Rhiannon in the gazebo... and Dean came along, and just about pegged him as a pedophile." The word leaves a sour taste on Rory's tongue the very second it sails from her vocal chords. "Jason was listening, Jess left with Rhiannon, and... he decided not to let it pass." She lets her eyes travel to her door. Suddendly, invisible strings make to drag her towards it.

"I'm gonna check on Jess." She decides, standing up from her seating position.

"Rory, he's not two."_ What is going on here? _Lorelai's utter confusion shows clearly on her features.

"I know, but... I've been away a while..." She shakes her head. She's being ridiculous, again, but this is beyond help. Part of her needs to be there when he wakes up as much as she understands he'll be needing her. She knows that, the moment he'll open his eyes, he'll want to bolt and run as far and as fast as he'll be able to, and she'll be stopping him, holding him to her, until he'll be ready to face the hung-over aftermath of the emotional overload.

"Rory, Hon, what's going on? He's not going to disappear..." Lorelai can't comprehend the extent of the damage that happened one door over the night before.

_Ok. No damage as of yet. You shouldn't even be calling it damage. But._

"It's just... Let me go in there, ok? When I manage to make sense of it all, I'll tell you. But right now, you'll just have to trust me."

**Flashback**

It is Tuesday afternoon, and since Sunday morning, no Jess.

Oh, yes, she's seen him. She's seen him working at the diner, enough for a chaste peck on the lips and a cup of coffe in the morning. She's seen him look busy the moment she comes in looking for him, or for food, whichever needs must be satisfied at that particular moment... She shakes her head. She's a pro at playing the avoidance game. She knows the ropes and the rules and the schemes. What for the life of her she can't pinpoint are Jess' reasons for engaging in it.

_Ok, now I've had it. _She states to herself, noticing Jess making a hasty retreat towards the curtain he pushed aside a few moments before. Retreat, she muses, instigated by her mere presence in the diner.

She follows. She climbs the stairs. She pauses in front of the apartment door, debating whether to resort to knocking or not.

_Or not. She decides, throwing the door open._

"Are you avoiding me?" She is not even mad. She's just confused. She misses him to the point of physycal ache, if that is even remotely possible. Seconds and minutes and hours without him stab viciously at her, drawing blood, and strenght, and resolve. She got a glimpse into him and she wants more. If he'll ever let her, that is.

"Huh?" He looks up at her, startled. Something indefinite flashing in those brown irises of his. She can almost pinpoint fear, but wouldn't stake a certain bet on it.

"Jess... Don't..." She shakes her head, seeing him glancing at the door, calculating which moves will get him to there, and then out, in the shortest amount of time.

"Don't what?" _Damn it! _He watches as she plants herself in front of the escape route he's slowly inching towards. _Come on Mariano, what are you doing? Does any of this even classify as rational? Nope. Didn't think so._

"Don't..." She shakes her head, willing it free of his harsh tone. "Don't leave." She pleads, standing her ground in front of him.

_When the hell did she learn to read me so well?_ His mind frantically searches for excuses.

"I have..."

"Things to do? What? Reorganize your books by genre, author, and publishing date?"

"See..."

"Jason? He's working. Rhiannon? She's in Hartford with Erika. Jason told me when I caught him downstairs."

"I have to..."

"Work? Your shift starts in two hours. Study? When do you ever willingly study? When did you start picking studying over me?"_ Well now you sound like a brat. Hope you weren't going for mature, there..._

"Is that what irks you? That you're not at top of my list any more?" He knows that this is not the point to this discussion, but latches on to it anyways. "I screwed myself over for pulling shit like that. I'm not doing it again!" _Anger. Show her anger. Push her away..._ Truth be told, he's scared. Hell, he's terrified. He's had time to think about what he let himself show to her. He let his walls down and feels naked, defenseless... _And thank God she doesn't know about my past, about NYC. She knows too much. You're vulnerable to her now._

"Is that what you want? For me not to be at the top of your..." Realization dawns on her features. Something Jess doesn't quite know whether to be thankful or not for. She inches closer to him, unnoticeably so because he does not retreat.

"Oh Jess..." _I should have known this was going to happen. I mean, come on, I date the man..._

"Jess what?" _And again, when did she learn to read me so well?_

"Is this about... Saturday night?" Something lurks at the back of those chocolate brown eyes. She desperately needs to bridge distance. He's been pushing her away and she hates him for it.

"Jess?" She calls his name again, and her lips curl around the only sounds she can muster at the moment.

"I love you" and she all but leaps into his arms, making him stagger backwards and trip himself over. They end up on the floor, she on top of him, arms wrapped tightly around each other, hearts pounding and blood rushing from the inevitable tumble induced adrenaline rush.

"I love you" He chokes it out, still uncomfortable with it.

Her lips skim his ear, her breath burns him like shame.

"Don't do this... It hurts me." And with that, she disentangles and makes for the door. Hoping against hope that he'll stop her, somehow. She manages to reach for the doorhandle, before his voice sidles up to her.

_You hurt her? Great, Mariano, like you haven't done that enough in the past eight months._

"Stay?" He cannot help himself. She turns around, half in tears, eyeing him on the floor. A smile fights to surface on her lips. The sight is half comical.

He mentally curses himself as he sees how close to crying she is; realizing just how much of a toll this keeping her at arm's lenght has taken on them both, he finally caves.

"Rory? C'me here..." He balances himself on one elbow, while his other arm gestures for her, and she responds to his hesitant request, by settling back on top of him. Knees at his hips, chest to his ribcage, ear to his heart.

She feels like being able to breath, without something sharp poking at her, now.

"I don't want to hurt you, ever. I'm just..."... S_cared shitless. _He's jumped headfirst into an unknown dimension. _If there's someone up there, please help me, 'cause I don't have the first clue as to what the fuck I'm doing.._

"... Oh that? Me too."

"You really gotta stop doing that."

"That? That what?" Her voice is muffled by his shirt.

"That reading my mind, completing my sentences stuff. It's becoming kinda freakish."

"Never."

**End of Flashback**

_Oh God... if he was avoiding me then, this time he's probably going to skip town! I'm never going to see him again!_

She starts panicking.

"Mom." She speaks as calmly as possible. "Go back to bed. I mean it, my dress is perfect, you need more sleep, and so do I. And I need to go back in there and see whether my books are still all there, or Jess has finally decided to make good on his threat and burn all my Ayn Rands."

"What? Is he nuts?"

"I think it's more along the lines of having a gruesome death wish." She shrugs, before stooping to hug her crazy birthgiver, and moving towards the door.

"Rory?"

"Yeah?"

"You're graduating today." Lorelai's voice breaks, crack, strains under the emotional weight of what she's about to tell her daughter. "Look at you..." A smile curves her lips upwards "You're all grown up." _And I'm so damn proud of you, baby girl._

Little does she know she's echoing Rory's thoughts from the previous afternoon.

The younger Gilmore nods and enters her room, locking the door behind her, and goes to the bed, coming face to face with an almost awake Jess.

"Mornin'" His eyes shift from her to her door. _Should I make a run for it?_

"Mornin'" she says, warily. "Are you going to pull a MIA on me, or can we just skip the whole avoidance thing?" _'Cause I'm really not up to that._

"Do I have a choice?" _Yeah, right. Not likely. _

"No." _No way you're putting me through that again._

"Ok." He nods, considering his options. "Was that your mother out there?"

"Considering I live in her house, and it's almost six AM, yes, that would be your safest guess." She bites her lip. "I told her, about... you know... us, yesterday afternoon."

"And I'm still breathing?"

"Yeah. I convinced her that an untimely demise on your part wouldn't exactly make my graduation day."

"Glad to hear that." He gets up to stand in fron of her. "C'me here." He breathes, his voice the usual caress on her skin, his hands on her face and neck, his lips on hers.

_She knows... _

_... She knows and we've had sex... _

_... She knows and we've had sex and she's still here... _

_... She knows and we've had sex and she's still here and she's mine..._

_... How in the hell is that even possible?_

She yawns.

"Mmh?"

"Mmh? Mind translating?"

"I was just..." She is cut off by another yawn. She wraps her arms around his waist and lays her head on his chest, tucking it under his chin.

"Rory?" Her name rolls off his tongue and on her, like droplets of water leaving trails, clinging.lingering on her skin. He feels her shuddering a little, a suppressed yawn and something else. He pegs it as a reflex reaction she won't control because of her needing to rest. "Don't fall asleep on me here." His voice holds the same caressing quality, made huskier by early hour.

"Huh? Why not?"

"'Cause I'd have to stand here 'till you wake up."

"I knew you were useful for something..." She yawns again, leaning into him a little more. He shakes his head and manouvers them both to the bed, tumping with the back of his legs into it and falling, more or less gracefully, on it, Rory held tightly to him.

"That was fun. Can we do it again?" She giggles sleepily.

"I'm never waking you up at five AM without coffee."Jess chuckles. "No way in the hell I'm putting up with your insanity." His lips skim hers as she brings her head up to level with his.

"You're never waking me up at five AM period." She replies, trying to sound dangerous and failing miserably as a yawn ruins her don't mess with me impersonation.

Jess finds himself yawning as well.

"You're contagious." He scolds her playfully.

"Aw really?" She cooes.

"Yeah, really." He works his words around another yawn.

"I can't believe we're laying here, and all we're thinking about is... sleep."

_Huh._

**Flashback**

Rory awakens to a unfamiliar sensation messing with her.

_I'm naked. _

Opening her eyes, she finds a couple of brown irises taking a plunge to the depth of her soul, and she freezes as she gains awareness of her surroundings.

_I'm naked and Jess is here._

_I'm naked and Jess is here and he's naked too._

_I'm naked and Jess is here and he's naked and we're in bed. Together._

His body is laying on hers, matching it inch by inch of uncovered skin.

"We had sex!" She blurts out.

"Oh. So that's what that was? 'Cause I thought we were just playing a very involved game of chess." He replies with a smirk and his trademark sarcasm.

She frowns as her hands shove him off of her, managing to land him on the floor in the process, and then rolls over to peek at him over he edge of the bed.

"Ow!" He glares at her.

"Comfortable?" She holds his gaze while posing the question.

He keeps glaring.

She continues holding it.

He makes a grab for her, hands latching on her arms, pulling her on top of him, naked and everything, and they start tickling each other until hysterical laughter overcomes them, leaving them breathless on the floor.

And then they're kissing, hungrily, relentlessly, bodies pressed close together.

"I take it you're ok with... this?" He whispers in between kisses.

She smiles._ Ok? Better than ok. _

"Bed?"

"Bed" He agrees, and pulls them both to a standing position. She lets him sit her on the edge of the bed, and trains a sapphire stare on him as he kneels in front of her. Blue irises shrink to minimum potential as he kisses her, maddeningly, tantalizingly, eliciting moans and groans from her vocal chords.

_Oh God._

"I... like... when... you... do... that..." Five chocked out words, of praise, to him, from her, and he feels ten meters tall. His mouth does unspeakeable, undescribeable, impossible things to her, as she bites her lip to keep from voicing exactly how much she appreciates his talent, right now, and her fingers grab at the back of his neck,at his hair, her nails clawing at his shoulders and arms.

Coherent thought is no longer there to hold her back or hurge her forward. Reason and logical thinking do not belong to young lovers, darkened bedrooms and newly explored passion.

It scares him and elates him, this power he has over her now, for she is completely under his control. He could ask her to give up coffe, help him stage a bank robbery, go bunjee jumping, dump Yale and go live on Mount Everest... and she would, without so much as a why. He feels her shift and lay back on the bed, her whimpering now a steady flow of unchoerent, jumbled syllables.

He stops. Abruptly.

"Move over." He's breathing heavilly and his voice has a urgency to it she has come to recognize. It pushes her to oblige it without questioning, surrendering to his will and his wishes. He lays by her side, supporting himself on left arm and hip, his fingers teasing and taunting her to the brink of something unreacheable, only to let her tumble backwards while withdrawing from her. He ignores his own frustration, for that need has been sated not long ago. His own physical release can wait... for a while at least.

He studies her features as pleasure, disappointment, yearning and lust battle over territory. Each wants to take over and none does. His lips find her ear, her mouth, her breasts, her neck. Every bit of flesh he can reach he kisses...

And then he's hovering on top of her, deepening his biblical knowledge and understanding of her innermost workings as he once again stakes claim to her. It is when she thrusts herself at him while hooking her legs around his waist, and whimpers softly as his fingertips find and massage an attention needing bit of tender, wet flesh; it is when she starts moving her hips against him and setting the pace for their love making, and then later, when she is on top of him, teeth biting into his neck, that he realizes she's been staking claims of her own.

_That's going to bruise. _He think, erratically, since he couldn't possibly care less.

That sends him reeling.

Rory's latched on to his neck, vampire style. Partly to keep from screaming and partly because it seems her legs and hands, and his arms holding her against him can't possibly suffice to keep her grounded. She feels him slowing and stopping, rolling her off of him, and something vicious pulsing deep within her... A look of disappointment washes over her face, until Jess starts kisses her and slides a hand down to her, sending her hurtling, finally enabling her to reach the unreacheable something she thought she'd never grasp.

She screams then, his name into his mouth as he sucks at her tongue and allows her to ride this earthquake rumbling through her body.

"That was... that was... " She loses herself in his eyes and nestles into his body, sentence incomplete and hanging. _Huh. Coherence. Highly overrated._

"Me. Making love. To you." He whispers.

"Oh. So we weren't playing chess?" She retaliates, drowsily.

"Since when did chess become so physical?" He throws back.

"Good point... Hey, Mariano, you love me, right?" She bats her eyelashes at him and assumes her best love-struck gaze, feeling playful all of a sudden.

"Oh, yeah." He says half seriously. "I've totally fallen for you." He brings a hand to his heart and heaves an exagerated sigh.

"As long as we're clear on that..." She draws him even closer, if that is humanly possible.

He shakes his head.

What has he gotten himself into?

**End of Flashback**

"Huh." His eyes study her "Were you expecting a repeat performance from yesterday afternoon?"

She thinks for a minute.

"Maybe later." She yawns again.

"Ok." He glances at the clock. "Hey Rory?"

"What?"

"I have to go." He frowns at the time telling device.

"No. Stay..." She pouts. "I like you."

"I like you too, if that helps any. But I really have to go, or Luke will kill me. And since I've recently gotten back in his good graces... see where I'm going with this?"He waits for her to nod. _Good_."You'll be in for breakfast?" He starts getting up and looking for his clothes.

"Ok. You coming today, aren't you?" Her eyes dance around the room, following each and every move he makes.

"I said I would, and I'll be there." He pulls on his jeans.

"A man of your word, huh?" She points at his shirt, which has fallen off the chair he had hung it on the night before.

"Yes. And I'll be taking the graduate as soon as she gets her diploma." He retrieves his jacket.

"Sounds dirrrty." She rolls the r's like her mother usually does.

"Hugh. Stop. You sound like Lorelai." He sits on the edge of the bed to tie his shoes, and she sits up to wrap her legs and arms around him from behind.

"You do realize that's a compliment, right?" She whispers in his ear. Then starts leaving wet kisses on the skin of her neck.

"Not in my universe." He mutters, feeling less like leaving with each passing second. _If she keeps that up, I'm never getting out of this room. _He gently pries her off of him and proceeds to get up.

She pouts some more. He leans over to kiss it off her lips, before tangling his fingers in her hair and tugging slowly at her bottom lip with his.

"Later?" She asks.

"Later" He promises. And he's out her window, on his way to Luke's.

**A/N: Like it? Hope so. Next on LUFI, the bridge conversation. Check the bio for usual meaning of life related information. Please review. Just 'cause... you'll make me really happy. And a happy lit does good fics make... Getting the gist? M.**


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